I just don't understand the point of this exercise. No matter what we believe about the bombings, they happened and that can't be taken back. All we're doing is banging our heads against a wall here.
"Almost all those politicians took money from Enron, and there they are holding hearings. That's like O.J. Simpson getting in the Rae Carruth jury pool." -- Charles Barkley
Has anyone here bothered to watch the Documentary "Trinity and beyond"?
If not....do.
The first two atomic bombs were science experiments...
at the time, the Japanese were viewed at lab rats...
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
Has anyone here bothered to watch the Documentary "Trinity and beyond"?
If not....do.
The first two atomic bombs were science experiments...
at the time, the Japanese were viewed at lab rats...
"Trinity" is freaking amazing. Man, this might make me a sick fuck, but I love the way mushroom clouds look. Nukes are horrible but they're also pretty damned cool. It's amazing how much destruction they cause. I'm just glad they haven't been used since Hiro and Naga.
"Almost all those politicians took money from Enron, and there they are holding hearings. That's like O.J. Simpson getting in the Rae Carruth jury pool." -- Charles Barkley
do you have any idea what Japan had been up to in the Pacific in the years prior to Pearl Harbor?
Also, why is it that we gave 99% of all the territory back to the rightful owners after we conquered the Japanese?
You think the U.S was simply minding it's own business out there in the Pacific and had no idea of what was coming?
And as for giving 99% of all the territory back after 1945, tell that to the people of the Phillipines and Micronesia. Also, tell it to the people of those countries in the Pacific region who had to endure brutal dictatorships propped up by the U.S after the war- Indonesia, for example.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v11/v11p431_Lutton.html
'In September 1944, John T. Flynn launched Pearl Harbor revisionism when he published a forty-six page booklet entitled The Truth about Pearl Harbor. Flynn argued that Roosevelt and his cronies had been plotting war against Japan at least since January 1941. The Administration continued needlessly to provoke the Japanese government throughout the rest of the year, and on November 26, 1941, delivered a diplomatic ultimatum that no government could possibly accept. Flynn also suggested that Kimmel and Short were given the wrong instructions from Washington headquarters, thus aborting the taking of effective measures at the base.
In early 1945, a thirty-year-old historian, William L. Neumann, published a brochure, The Genesis of Pearl Harbor. He reviewed the diplomatic background to the outbreak of the war and pointed out how the Roosevelt Administration had launched an economic war against Japan in the summer and fall of 1941. Neumann concluded that both sides were responsible, but that Washington could not have been surprised by the attack at Pearl Harbor, given FDR's diplomatic activities in the months and days preceding December 7th.'
The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan Before Pearl Harbor
'In his book published by the Naval Institute Press, Miller contends that the United States forced Japan into international bankruptcy to deter its aggression. The Japanese government had a huge cache of dollars fraudulently hidden in New York. In July 1941, President Roosevelt froze the money to "bring Japan to its senses, not its knees," Miller asserts. Roosevelt’s intentions were thwarted, however, by U.S. bureaucrats who were determined to deny Japan the dollars needed to buy oil and other resources for economic survival. Miller demonstrates that the deprivations facing the Japanese people as a result of the fund cutoff buttressed Japan’s choice of war at Pearl Harbor.'
"Trinity" is freaking amazing. Man, this might make me a sick fuck, but I love the way mushroom clouds look. Nukes are horrible but they're also pretty damned cool. It's amazing how much destruction they cause. I'm just glad they haven't been used since Hiro and Naga.
Yeah, what blew me away (no pun intended) was how many nukes were actually created and detonated in the years immediately following Hiroshima and Nagasaki... I think it was over 300 (345?) ...that's an immense crap load of unnecessary environmental contamination.
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, a wave of 300 American bombers struck Tokyo, killing 100,000 people. Dropping nearly 1,700 tons of bombs, the war planes ravaged much of the capital city, completely burning out 16 square miles and destroying a quarter of a million structures. A million residents were left homeless.
On May 23, eleven weeks later, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 "Superfortress" bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo's commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 "Superfortress" planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
"Almost all those politicians took money from Enron, and there they are holding hearings. That's like O.J. Simpson getting in the Rae Carruth jury pool." -- Charles Barkley
Moot point. Because what he says means that :
1 - when choosing to drop the bomb(s) the us did not know for sure it would lead to surrender. Which meant they were willing to sacrifice 2 cities just to try.
2 - the us did not know how many bombs would be needed. would they have continued to destroy cities until the japanese surrendered?
Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, a wave of 300 American bombers struck Tokyo, killing 100,000 people. Dropping nearly 1,700 tons of bombs, the war planes ravaged much of the capital city, completely burning out 16 square miles and destroying a quarter of a million structures. A million residents were left homeless.
On May 23, eleven weeks later, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 "Superfortress" bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo's commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 "Superfortress" planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
That's nice and backs up my point about how a prolonged siege of Japan combined with a continued aerial bombardment would have resulted in more deaths than the two atomic bombs, but it does not disprove my point that NO official documents exist or have ever be found to exist that show that Japan was ready to surrender prior to the a-bombs.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
2 - the us did not know how many bombs would be needed. would they have continued to destroy cities until the japanese surrendered?
The U.S. only had two bombs. Would they have continued to destroy cities until the Japanese surrendered??? What's the goal of war??? Should the Allies have stopped their European efforts at Germany's border and said that's enough?? All of the Axis regimes had to be removed from power.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
It was war...bombs were dropped on innocents from Hawaii to Singapore to Nanking to Tokyo to Dresden to Stalingard to London to Paris to Rome to Manila and beyond. These innocents were supporting a regime that had butchered millions of other innocents for nearly a decade. Innocents in numbers of this magnitude were going to die until the regime surrendered based on the terms of the victors, whether it occurred through two bombs or thousands of bombs or an outright invasion of the home islands.
Yes, I am okay with killing innocent people to save other people. It's been happening as long as this species has gathered into groups.
Yes, you can apply sixty year old logic to events that happened sixty years ago...simply because it was the basis that they were working. They did not have your 20/20 hindsight or even a working "Magic EightBall." Their decision was based on what they thought and knew at the time.
Next time there's a school shooter, let the swat team come and shoot a dozen people and the shooter. The killer could have killed thirty people. Job well done. Your logic. It's okay to kill innocent people to save others. Or is it only okay when those people are non-American?
9/11, the victims deserved to die. I don't care, it wasn't my grandmother that died. This is exactly the logic that I've seen here and it sickens me. And I know what you'll say, America was the hero in the WW, the good guy. And you're right. But a good guy that made mistakes (it's ok to admit them, no one can be perfect, every country makes mistakes. You can only learn from them). I'm glad the US won, don't get me wrong. But I'm sad so many innocent people died, but what's even worse is that you guys don't even care. Innocent people died, remember the shock on 9/11. 3000 people innocent people died, I live in Belgium and I saw people cry here. Think about the families of the people who were killed and go and tell them, 'these terrorist want a war, so bummer, innocent people die'.
I know they didn't want to save others with their actions on 9/11. But to the families of the victims it really doesn't matter. Go tell a guy his pregnant wife died because it's better this way. Tell a grandmother her entire family died, but you were justified in dropping the bombs because if you hadn't they might have died. Tell them their children, fathers, mother ... deserved to die.
It's so disgusting, you don't even show a sign of compassion or grief. I don't care whether you think dropping the bombs was justified or not. You can think it was justified in order to win the war, save other people etc. - though I disagree, I can understand that - but what I can't understand is you talk about those innocent people dying like it's a trivial thing, like it's meaningless.
Sure, your grandfathers died for your freedom. But so did over 200,000 innocent people in Japan. Their deaths meant the end of the war.
I also think that if we forget about the people that died, about all the innocent people that died in war (by friendly or enemy fire), that war will always be a reality.
edit: Also, it's sixty years later. I think you know a lot more than the people who lived sixty years ago. It's not wrong to use that knowledge.
A lot of German people were afraid to do something during the nazi regime. Today Germans don't hide behind that. They don't say, "but they were afraid. Protesting meant prison or worse." They are ashamed. They feel sorry.
Next time there's a school shooter, let the swat team come and shoot a dozen people and the shooter. The killer could have killed thirty people. Job well done. Your logic. It's okay to kill innocent people to save others. Or is it only okay when those people are non-American?
9/11, the victims deserved to die. I don't care, it wasn't my grandmother that died. This is exactly the logic that I've seen here and it sickens me. And I know what you'll say, America was the hero in the WW, the good guy. And you're right. But a good guy that made mistakes (it's ok to admit them, no one can be perfect, every country makes mistakes. You can only learn from them). I'm glad the US won, don't get me wrong. But I'm sad so many innocent people died, but what's even worse is that you guys don't even care. Innocent people died, remember the shock on 9/11. 3000 people innocent people died, I live in Belgium and I saw people cry here. Think about the families of the people who were killed and go and tell them, 'these terrorist want a war, so bummer, innocent people die'.
I know they didn't want to save others with their actions on 9/11. But to the families of the victims it really doesn't matter. Go tell a guy his pregnant wife died because it's better this way. Tell a grandmother her entire family died, but you were justified in dropping the bombs because if you hadn't they might have died. Tell them their children, fathers, mother ... deserved to die.
It's so disgusting, you don't even show a sign of compassion or grief. I don't care whether you think dropping the bombs was justified or not. You can think it was justified in order to win the war, save other people etc. - though I disagree, I can understand that - but what I can't understand is you talk about those innocent people dying like it's a trivial thing, like it's meaningless.
Sure, your grandfathers died for your freedom. But so did over 200,000 innocent people in Japan. Their deaths meant the end of the war.
I also think that if we forget about the people that died, about all the innocent people that died in war (by friendly or enemy fire), that war will always be a reality.
edit: Also, it's sixty years later. I think you know a lot more than the people who lived sixty years ago. It's not wrong to use that knowledge.
A lot of German people were afraid to do something during the nazi regime. Today Germans don't hide behind that. They don't say, "but they were afraid. Protesting meant prison or worse." They are ashamed. They feel sorry.
Comparing 9/11 to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is apples and oranges. They're not even close to each other. Last time I checked, we weren't in a declared war with those fundamentalist wackos who flew jets into buildings. But, we were at war with Japan. Not. The. Same. You're right about one thing, though: Dropping those bombs did end the war. It was a hardcore motherfucker move, but it accomplished the goal. It sucks for the Japanese that nobody believed they would surrender, but if you want to assign blame, assign it to their leadership, not ours. I guess you want Americans to tell you we're ashamed? Good luck. It wasn't the high point of our nation's existence, but it sure as hell wasn't turning a blind eye to Nazism. Man, it must be nice to live in Belgium. While its citizens were being railroaded by Hitler and his goons, U.S. and other Allied troops were dying to save them. People in Belgium don't have to deal with people criticizing them for winning the worst war the world has ever seen. They sat back and took it up the ass from the Germans but their hands are blood-free.
"Almost all those politicians took money from Enron, and there they are holding hearings. That's like O.J. Simpson getting in the Rae Carruth jury pool." -- Charles Barkley
Comparing 9/11 to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is apples and oranges. They're not even close to each other. Last time I checked, we weren't in a declared war with those fundamentalist wackos who flew jets into buildings. But, we were at war with Japan. Not. The. Same. You're right about one thing, though: Dropping those bombs did end the war. It was a hardcore motherfucker move, but it accomplished the goal. It sucks for the Japanese that nobody believed they would surrender, but if you want to assign blame, assign it to their leadership, not ours. I guess you want Americans to tell you we're ashamed? Good luck. It wasn't the high point of our nation's existence, but it sure as hell wasn't turning a blind eye to Nazism. Man, it must be nice to live in Belgium. While its citizens were being railroaded by Hitler and his goons, U.S. and other Allied troops were dying to save them. People in Belgium don't have to deal with people criticizing them for winning the worst war the world has ever seen. They sat back and took it up the ass from the Germans but their hands are blood-free.
sigh, do people not read threads anymore?
again, According to the official US Strategic Bombing Survey
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
THATS FROM THE US GOV'T, THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY DROPPED THE BOMBS. THey've even apologized to Japan for dropping them. IT was a barbarous act that should never have happened, period.
Next time there's a school shooter, let the swat team come and shoot a dozen people and the shooter. The killer could have killed thirty people. Job well done. Your logic. It's okay to kill innocent people to save others. Or is it only okay when those people are non-American?
9/11, the victims deserved to die. I don't care, it wasn't my grandmother that died. This is exactly the logic that I've seen here and it sickens me. And I know what you'll say, America was the hero in the WW, the good guy. And you're right. But a good guy that made mistakes (it's ok to admit them, no one can be perfect, every country makes mistakes. You can only learn from them). I'm glad the US won, don't get me wrong. But I'm sad so many innocent people died, but what's even worse is that you guys don't even care. Innocent people died, remember the shock on 9/11. 3000 people innocent people died, I live in Belgium and I saw people cry here. Think about the families of the people who were killed and go and tell them, 'these terrorist want a war, so bummer, innocent people die'.
I know they didn't want to save others with their actions on 9/11. But to the families of the victims it really doesn't matter. Go tell a guy his pregnant wife died because it's better this way. Tell a grandmother her entire family died, but you were justified in dropping the bombs because if you hadn't they might have died. Tell them their children, fathers, mother ... deserved to die.
It's so disgusting, you don't even show a sign of compassion or grief. I don't care whether you think dropping the bombs was justified or not. You can think it was justified in order to win the war, save other people etc. - though I disagree, I can understand that - but what I can't understand is you talk about those innocent people dying like it's a trivial thing, like it's meaningless.
Sure, your grandfathers died for your freedom. But so did over 200,000 innocent people in Japan. Their deaths meant the end of the war.
I also think that if we forget about the people that died, about all the innocent people that died in war (by friendly or enemy fire), that war will always be a reality.
edit: Also, it's sixty years later. I think you know a lot more than the people who lived sixty years ago. It's not wrong to use that knowledge.
A lot of German people were afraid to do something during the nazi regime. Today Germans don't hide behind that. They don't say, "but they were afraid. Protesting meant prison or worse." They are ashamed. They feel sorry.
This is almost too stupid to respond to....I never said that the folks on 9/11 deserved to die...but somewhere someone said it and believed it, and I am sure that someone who believed that would have no problem looking a relative of the victim in the face and saying so. See there's two sides to every story or every conflict. I know that principle has existed as long as we have huddled together as a species. It was "Total War"....civilians were going to die on any and all sides. Innocent U.S. civilians died in the Philippines....innocent U.S. civilians died in Hawaii...the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands...whose innocents are more valuable...depends on your point of view, eh?
The Terrorists wanting a war...maybe...wanting to make a statement was more likely the reason for 9/11. Yes in their frame of reference, no one in the United States was innocent (except for maybe the members of their fifth column). Yes, there are people who think like that in this world. That's not my logic...that's just the facts.
The U.S. made mistakes in fighting WW II, but the Atomic bombs were not a mistake.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
again, According to the official US Strategic Bombing Survey
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
THATS FROM THE US GOV'T, THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY DROPPED THE BOMBS. THey've even apologized to Japan for dropping them. IT was a barbarous act that should never have happened, period.
That hindsight is 20/20 dead on...still no official document exists from the Japanese that indicates that they were considering surrender prior to the bombings...none..zip...zero. It does not matter what they said after the war...the war was over, and Mr. Peabody had not made his Way-back Machine available to the U.S. government in 1945.
The survey was conducted by a newly independent branch of the armed services. I would expect to overpraise their efforts in any post-war documents of this nature...got to keep the money flowing...they still believed that a nation could be conquered totally by aerial forces, and this document is them trying to prove that point.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
That hindsight is 20/20 dead on...still no official document exists from the Japanese that indicates that they were considering surrender prior to the bombings...none..zip...zero. It does not matter what they said after the war...the war was over, and Mr. Peabody had not made his Way-back Machine available to the U.S. government in 1945.
The survey was conducted by a newly independent branch of the armed services. I would expect to overpraise their efforts in any post-war documents of this nature...got to keep the money flowing...they still believed that a nation could be conquered totally by aerial forces, and this document is them trying to prove that point.
Everyone knew Japan was in a terrible state. The NY Times' military analyst, "The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position...", referrring to Japan.
But again, that's hindsight. fine.
The Japanese code had been broken at the time of the bombings, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. Japan had instructed their ambassador to start peace talks with the allies, through the soviets. This was known to the allies. Japan had even spoken of surrender a full YEAR before the atomic bombs were dropped. On July 13 Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Togo, wired Moscow ,"...unconditional surrender the only obstacle to peace." This message was decoded and sent to Washington.
Small steps were all that were needed to end the war, instead they dropped 2 atomic weapons on civilian populations in an act many consider to be the first act of the cold war. They wanted to show the world, not only did we have nukes, but we have the balls to use them, a lesson counted in the hundreds of thousands of lives.
they didnt surrender after the first bomb was dropped.
who surrenders secretly? this theory is bullshit, sorry.
The second bomb was dropped 3 days after the first. The Japanese government still didn't know exactly what had happened at Hiroshima when the 2nd bomb was dropped.
The U.S. made mistakes in fighting WW II, but the Atomic bombs were not a mistake.
At the end of the day, the powers-that-be wanted to see what kind of damage these things could do. Japan was done well before the bombs were dropped and the US did not want the war to end without having dropped one of these bombs. That said, it saved some American lives by essentially preventing an invasion and it only killed a few more Japanese, who were fucking animals in WW2 (and 140k was a drop in the bucket by that point anyway). Sure it was unnecessary and excessive but if those bombs were not dropped there would have been a nuclear attack in Korea or Vietnam. Those bombs being dropped are the reason that you don't see these bombs being dropped anymore.
1/12/1879, 4/8/1156, 2/6/1977, who gives a shit, ...
Everyone knew Japan was in a terrible state. The NY Times' military analyst, "The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position...", referrring to Japan.
But again, that's hindsight. fine.
The Japanese code had been broken at the time of the bombings, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. Japan had instructed their ambassador to start peace talks with the allies, through the soviets. This was known to the allies. Japan had even spoken of surrender a full YEAR before the atomic bombs were dropped. On July 13 Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Togo, wired Moscow ,"...unconditional surrender the only obstacle to peace." This message was decoded and sent to Washington.
Small steps were all that were needed to end the war, instead they dropped 2 atomic weapons on civilian populations in an act many consider to be the first act of the cold war. They wanted to show the world, not only did we have nukes, but we have the balls to use them, a lesson counted in the hundreds of thousands of lives.
Produce a copy of the document..no official documents exist showing any desire for surrender by the Japanese government...none...Unconditional surrender were the only terms per Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S. What part of the only terms are you missing out on???
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
The second bomb was dropped 3 days after the first. The Japanese government still didn't know exactly what had happened at Hiroshima when the 2nd bomb was dropped.
Real brilliant folks...don't know what's happening in your own country...wow...three whole days. :rolleyes:
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a thousand enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
Real brilliant folks...don't know what's happening in your own country...wow...three whole days. :rolleyes:
That's right. Communications in Japan weren't exactly functioning at full capacity at that point in time and after months of sustained carpet bombing by B29's. Also, the atomic bomb was a new weapon and hadn't been used before. Most Japanese had no idea what had happened until quite some time after the event.
Real brilliant folks...don't know what's happening in your own country...wow...three whole days. :rolleyes:
guess the japanese govt. shoulda sent out mass emails and called everybody's cell phone....told everybody to tune into cnn headline news to cathc up on the bombing...
_____________________
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
- Benjamin Franklin
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers
_____________________
guess the japanese govt. shoulda sent out mass emails and called everybody's cell phone....told everybody to tune into cnn headline news to catch up on the bombing...
That's right. The Japanese could have simply phoned their embedded reporters on the ground at the epicentre of the explosion to ask them for details.
'...Curtis E. LeMay, the Air Force general who led B-29 bombing of Japanese cities late in the war. LeMay once said, "There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders." And he was as good as his word: in one night of fire-bombing Tokyo, he and his men killed 100,000 civilians. So we can be confident that any doubts he had about dropping the atom bomb would not be based on concern for Japanese civilians. But consider the following dialogue between LeMay and the press.
"LeMay: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.
"The Press: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: Yes, with the B-29…
"The Press: General, why use the atomic bomb? Why did we use it then?
"LeMay: Well, the other people were not convinced…
"The Press: Had they not surrendered because of the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."
Nor was LeMay alone. Other Air Force officers, all documented in Alperovitz, had reached similar conclusions. And Navy admirals and Army generals also believed that dropping the bomb was a bad idea. Fleet Admiral Leahy, for instance, the chief of staff to the president and a friend of Truman's, thought the atom bomb unnecessary. Furthermore, he wrote, "in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, thought the war could be ended well before a planned November 1945 naval invasion. And in a public speech on Oct. 5, 1945, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, said, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war."
Many Army leaders had similar views. Author Norman Cousins writes of Gen. Douglas 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 later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
Produce a copy of the document..no official documents exist showing any desire for surrender by the Japanese government...none...Unconditional surrender were the only terms per Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S. What part of the only terms are you missing out on???
http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=11405
'There is ample evidence that the Japanese government was willing to surrender months before Aug. 6 if only it could keep its emperor. Much of this evidence is given in Alperovitz's book and much in Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996). Wainstock (pp. 22-23) tells of many attempts by the Japanese to clarify the terms and to make clear their willingness to surrender if they could only keep their emperor untouched. For example, on April 7, 1945, acting Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru asked Swedish Ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." Shigemitsu emphasized that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge passed the message on to the U.S. government, but Secretary of State Edward Stettinius told the U.S. ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of this matter."[10]
So the Japanese government tried another route. On May 7, 1945, Masutard Inoue, counselor of the Japanese legation in Portugal, approached an agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Inoue asked the agent to contact the U.S. embassy and "find out exactly what they plan to do in the Far East." He expressed his fear that Japan would be smashed, and he emphasized, "there can be no unconditional surrender." The agent passed the message on, but nothing came of it.
Three times is a charm, goes the saying. But not for the hapless Japanese. On May 10, 1945, Gen. Onodera, Japan's military representative in Sweden, tried to get a member of Sweden's royal family to approach the Allies for a settlement. He emphasized also that Japan's government would not accept unconditional surrender and must be allowed to "save face." The U.S. government urged Sweden's government to let the matter drop.
But if you can't at first surrender, try, try again. On July 12, with almost four weeks to go before the horrible blast, Kojiro Kitamura, a representative of the Yokohama Specie Bank in Switzerland, told Per Jacobson, a Swedish adviser to the Bank for International Settlements, that he wanted to contact U.S. representatives and that the only condition Japan insisted on was that it keep its emperor. "He was acting with the consent of Shunichi Kase, the Japanese minister to Switzerland, and General Kiyotomi Okamoto, chief of Japanese European intelligence, and they were in direct contact with Tokyo."[11] On July 14, Jacobson met in Wiesbaden, Germany with OSS representative Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA) and relayed the message that Japan's main demand was "retention of the Emperor." Dulles passed the information to Stimson, but Stimson refused to act on it.
Interestingly, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy drafted a proposed surrender demand for the Committee of Three (Grew, Stimson, and Navy Secretary James Forrestal.) Their draft was part of Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration, in which the Allies specified the conditions for Japan's surrender. Under their wording, Japan's government would have been allowed to keep its emperor as part of a "constitutional monarchy." Truman, though, who was influenced by his newly appointed Secretary of State James Byrnes on the ship over to the Potsdam Conference, changed the language of the surrender demand to drop the reference to keeping the emperor.
The bitter irony, of course, is that Truman ultimately allowed Japan to keep its emperor. Had this condition been dropped earlier, there would have been no need for the atom bomb. Rather than let Japan's government "save face," Truman destroyed almost 200,000 faces.
Why did this happen? Why did Truman persist in refusing to clarify what unconditional surrender meant? Alperovitz speculates, with evidence that some will find convincing and others won't, that the reason was to send a signal to Joseph Stalin that the U.S. government was willing to use some pretty vicious methods to dominate in the postwar world. My own view is that Truman and Byrnes wanted vengeance, plain and simple, and cared little about the loss of innocent lives. Let's face it: dropping an atom bomb on two non-militarily strategic cities was not different in principle from fire-bombing Tokyo or Dresden.
Comments
If not....do.
The first two atomic bombs were science experiments...
at the time, the Japanese were viewed at lab rats...
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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"Trinity" is freaking amazing. Man, this might make me a sick fuck, but I love the way mushroom clouds look. Nukes are horrible but they're also pretty damned cool. It's amazing how much destruction they cause. I'm just glad they haven't been used since Hiro and Naga.
You think the U.S was simply minding it's own business out there in the Pacific and had no idea of what was coming?
And as for giving 99% of all the territory back after 1945, tell that to the people of the Phillipines and Micronesia. Also, tell it to the people of those countries in the Pacific region who had to endure brutal dictatorships propped up by the U.S after the war- Indonesia, for example.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v11/v11p431_Lutton.html
'In September 1944, John T. Flynn launched Pearl Harbor revisionism when he published a forty-six page booklet entitled The Truth about Pearl Harbor. Flynn argued that Roosevelt and his cronies had been plotting war against Japan at least since January 1941. The Administration continued needlessly to provoke the Japanese government throughout the rest of the year, and on November 26, 1941, delivered a diplomatic ultimatum that no government could possibly accept. Flynn also suggested that Kimmel and Short were given the wrong instructions from Washington headquarters, thus aborting the taking of effective measures at the base.
In early 1945, a thirty-year-old historian, William L. Neumann, published a brochure, The Genesis of Pearl Harbor. He reviewed the diplomatic background to the outbreak of the war and pointed out how the Roosevelt Administration had launched an economic war against Japan in the summer and fall of 1941. Neumann concluded that both sides were responsible, but that Washington could not have been surprised by the attack at Pearl Harbor, given FDR's diplomatic activities in the months and days preceding December 7th.'
The U.S. Financial Siege of Japan Before Pearl Harbor
'In his book published by the Naval Institute Press, Miller contends that the United States forced Japan into international bankruptcy to deter its aggression. The Japanese government had a huge cache of dollars fraudulently hidden in New York. In July 1941, President Roosevelt froze the money to "bring Japan to its senses, not its knees," Miller asserts. Roosevelt’s intentions were thwarted, however, by U.S. bureaucrats who were determined to deny Japan the dollars needed to buy oil and other resources for economic survival. Miller demonstrates that the deprivations facing the Japanese people as a result of the fund cutoff buttressed Japan’s choice of war at Pearl Harbor.'
Yeah, what blew me away (no pun intended) was how many nukes were actually created and detonated in the years immediately following Hiroshima and Nagasaki... I think it was over 300 (345?) ...that's an immense crap load of unnecessary environmental contamination.
A little excerpt...the nuke cannon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LodXqmQ4wYw
insane...
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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( o.O)
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http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html
A Beaten Country
Apart from the moral questions involved, were the atomic bombings militarily necessary? By any rational yardstick, they were not. Japan already had been defeated militarily by June 1945. Almost nothing was left of the once mighty Imperial Navy, and Japan's air force had been all but totally destroyed. Against only token opposition, American war planes ranged at will over the country, and US bombers rained down devastation on her cities, steadily reducing them to rubble.
What was left of Japan's factories and workshops struggled fitfully to turn out weapons and other goods from inadequate raw materials. (Oil supplies had not been available since April.) By July about a quarter of all the houses in Japan had been destroyed, and her transportation system was near collapse. Food had become so scarce that most Japanese were subsisting on a sub-starvation diet.
On the night of March 9-10, 1945, a wave of 300 American bombers struck Tokyo, killing 100,000 people. Dropping nearly 1,700 tons of bombs, the war planes ravaged much of the capital city, completely burning out 16 square miles and destroying a quarter of a million structures. A million residents were left homeless.
On May 23, eleven weeks later, came the greatest air raid of the Pacific War, when 520 giant B-29 "Superfortress" bombers unleashed 4,500 tons of incendiary bombs on the heart of the already battered Japanese capital. Generating gale-force winds, the exploding incendiaries obliterated Tokyo's commercial center and railway yards, and consumed the Ginza entertainment district. Two days later, on May 25, a second strike of 502 "Superfortress" planes roared low over Tokyo, raining down some 4,000 tons of explosives. Together these two B-29 raids destroyed 56 square miles of the Japanese capital.
Even before the Hiroshima attack, American air force General Curtis LeMay boasted that American bombers were "driving them [Japanese] back to the stone age." Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold, commanding General of the Army air forces, declared in his 1949 memoirs: "It always appeared to us, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." This was confirmed by former Japanese prime minister Fumimaro Konoye, who said: "Fundamentally, the thing that brought about the determination to make peace was the prolonged bombing by the B-29s."
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4480965960351299329&q=white+light+black+rain&total=106&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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( o.O)
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How very sad.
1 - when choosing to drop the bomb(s) the us did not know for sure it would lead to surrender. Which meant they were willing to sacrifice 2 cities just to try.
2 - the us did not know how many bombs would be needed. would they have continued to destroy cities until the japanese surrendered?
oh my, feel so sad now
Next time there's a school shooter, let the swat team come and shoot a dozen people and the shooter. The killer could have killed thirty people. Job well done. Your logic. It's okay to kill innocent people to save others. Or is it only okay when those people are non-American?
9/11, the victims deserved to die. I don't care, it wasn't my grandmother that died. This is exactly the logic that I've seen here and it sickens me. And I know what you'll say, America was the hero in the WW, the good guy. And you're right. But a good guy that made mistakes (it's ok to admit them, no one can be perfect, every country makes mistakes. You can only learn from them). I'm glad the US won, don't get me wrong. But I'm sad so many innocent people died, but what's even worse is that you guys don't even care. Innocent people died, remember the shock on 9/11. 3000 people innocent people died, I live in Belgium and I saw people cry here. Think about the families of the people who were killed and go and tell them, 'these terrorist want a war, so bummer, innocent people die'.
I know they didn't want to save others with their actions on 9/11. But to the families of the victims it really doesn't matter. Go tell a guy his pregnant wife died because it's better this way. Tell a grandmother her entire family died, but you were justified in dropping the bombs because if you hadn't they might have died. Tell them their children, fathers, mother ... deserved to die.
It's so disgusting, you don't even show a sign of compassion or grief. I don't care whether you think dropping the bombs was justified or not. You can think it was justified in order to win the war, save other people etc. - though I disagree, I can understand that - but what I can't understand is you talk about those innocent people dying like it's a trivial thing, like it's meaningless.
Sure, your grandfathers died for your freedom. But so did over 200,000 innocent people in Japan. Their deaths meant the end of the war.
I also think that if we forget about the people that died, about all the innocent people that died in war (by friendly or enemy fire), that war will always be a reality.
edit: Also, it's sixty years later. I think you know a lot more than the people who lived sixty years ago. It's not wrong to use that knowledge.
A lot of German people were afraid to do something during the nazi regime. Today Germans don't hide behind that. They don't say, "but they were afraid. Protesting meant prison or worse." They are ashamed. They feel sorry.
naděje umírá poslední
Comparing 9/11 to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is apples and oranges. They're not even close to each other. Last time I checked, we weren't in a declared war with those fundamentalist wackos who flew jets into buildings. But, we were at war with Japan. Not. The. Same. You're right about one thing, though: Dropping those bombs did end the war. It was a hardcore motherfucker move, but it accomplished the goal. It sucks for the Japanese that nobody believed they would surrender, but if you want to assign blame, assign it to their leadership, not ours. I guess you want Americans to tell you we're ashamed? Good luck. It wasn't the high point of our nation's existence, but it sure as hell wasn't turning a blind eye to Nazism. Man, it must be nice to live in Belgium. While its citizens were being railroaded by Hitler and his goons, U.S. and other Allied troops were dying to save them. People in Belgium don't have to deal with people criticizing them for winning the worst war the world has ever seen. They sat back and took it up the ass from the Germans but their hands are blood-free.
sigh, do people not read threads anymore?
again, According to the official US Strategic Bombing Survey
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.
THATS FROM THE US GOV'T, THE PEOPLE THAT ACTUALLY DROPPED THE BOMBS. THey've even apologized to Japan for dropping them. IT was a barbarous act that should never have happened, period.
http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm
The Terrorists wanting a war...maybe...wanting to make a statement was more likely the reason for 9/11. Yes in their frame of reference, no one in the United States was innocent (except for maybe the members of their fifth column). Yes, there are people who think like that in this world. That's not my logic...that's just the facts.
The U.S. made mistakes in fighting WW II, but the Atomic bombs were not a mistake.
That hindsight is 20/20 dead on...still no official document exists from the Japanese that indicates that they were considering surrender prior to the bombings...none..zip...zero. It does not matter what they said after the war...the war was over, and Mr. Peabody had not made his Way-back Machine available to the U.S. government in 1945.
The survey was conducted by a newly independent branch of the armed services. I would expect to overpraise their efforts in any post-war documents of this nature...got to keep the money flowing...they still believed that a nation could be conquered totally by aerial forces, and this document is them trying to prove that point.
Everyone knew Japan was in a terrible state. The NY Times' military analyst, "The enemy, in a military sense, was in a hopeless strategic position...", referrring to Japan.
But again, that's hindsight. fine.
The Japanese code had been broken at the time of the bombings, and Japan's messages were being intercepted. Japan had instructed their ambassador to start peace talks with the allies, through the soviets. This was known to the allies. Japan had even spoken of surrender a full YEAR before the atomic bombs were dropped. On July 13 Japan's foreign minister, Shigenori Togo, wired Moscow ,"...unconditional surrender the only obstacle to peace." This message was decoded and sent to Washington.
Small steps were all that were needed to end the war, instead they dropped 2 atomic weapons on civilian populations in an act many consider to be the first act of the cold war. They wanted to show the world, not only did we have nukes, but we have the balls to use them, a lesson counted in the hundreds of thousands of lives.
who surrenders secretly? this theory is bullshit, sorry.
The second bomb was dropped 3 days after the first. The Japanese government still didn't know exactly what had happened at Hiroshima when the 2nd bomb was dropped.
At the end of the day, the powers-that-be wanted to see what kind of damage these things could do. Japan was done well before the bombs were dropped and the US did not want the war to end without having dropped one of these bombs. That said, it saved some American lives by essentially preventing an invasion and it only killed a few more Japanese, who were fucking animals in WW2 (and 140k was a drop in the bucket by that point anyway). Sure it was unnecessary and excessive but if those bombs were not dropped there would have been a nuclear attack in Korea or Vietnam. Those bombs being dropped are the reason that you don't see these bombs being dropped anymore.
That's right. Communications in Japan weren't exactly functioning at full capacity at that point in time and after months of sustained carpet bombing by B29's. Also, the atomic bomb was a new weapon and hadn't been used before. Most Japanese had no idea what had happened until quite some time after the event.
guess the japanese govt. shoulda sent out mass emails and called everybody's cell phone....told everybody to tune into cnn headline news to cathc up on the bombing...
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
- Benjamin Franklin
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers
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That's right. The Japanese could have simply phoned their embedded reporters on the ground at the epicentre of the explosion to ask them for details.
August 6, 2007
Remembering Hiroshima
http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=11405
'...Curtis E. LeMay, the Air Force general who led B-29 bombing of Japanese cities late in the war. LeMay once said, "There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn't bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders." And he was as good as his word: in one night of fire-bombing Tokyo, he and his men killed 100,000 civilians. So we can be confident that any doubts he had about dropping the atom bomb would not be based on concern for Japanese civilians. But consider the following dialogue between LeMay and the press.
"LeMay: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb.
"The Press: You mean that, sir? Without the Russians and the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: Yes, with the B-29…
"The Press: General, why use the atomic bomb? Why did we use it then?
"LeMay: Well, the other people were not convinced…
"The Press: Had they not surrendered because of the atomic bomb?
"LeMay: The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all."
Nor was LeMay alone. Other Air Force officers, all documented in Alperovitz, had reached similar conclusions. And Navy admirals and Army generals also believed that dropping the bomb was a bad idea. Fleet Admiral Leahy, for instance, the chief of staff to the president and a friend of Truman's, thought the atom bomb unnecessary. Furthermore, he wrote, "in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, thought the war could be ended well before a planned November 1945 naval invasion. And in a public speech on Oct. 5, 1945, Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, said, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war."
Many Army leaders had similar views. Author Norman Cousins writes of Gen. Douglas 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 later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."
http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=11405
'There is ample evidence that the Japanese government was willing to surrender months before Aug. 6 if only it could keep its emperor. Much of this evidence is given in Alperovitz's book and much in Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996). Wainstock (pp. 22-23) tells of many attempts by the Japanese to clarify the terms and to make clear their willingness to surrender if they could only keep their emperor untouched. For example, on April 7, 1945, acting Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru asked Swedish Ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." Shigemitsu emphasized that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge passed the message on to the U.S. government, but Secretary of State Edward Stettinius told the U.S. ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of this matter."[10]
So the Japanese government tried another route. On May 7, 1945, Masutard Inoue, counselor of the Japanese legation in Portugal, approached an agent of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Inoue asked the agent to contact the U.S. embassy and "find out exactly what they plan to do in the Far East." He expressed his fear that Japan would be smashed, and he emphasized, "there can be no unconditional surrender." The agent passed the message on, but nothing came of it.
Three times is a charm, goes the saying. But not for the hapless Japanese. On May 10, 1945, Gen. Onodera, Japan's military representative in Sweden, tried to get a member of Sweden's royal family to approach the Allies for a settlement. He emphasized also that Japan's government would not accept unconditional surrender and must be allowed to "save face." The U.S. government urged Sweden's government to let the matter drop.
But if you can't at first surrender, try, try again. On July 12, with almost four weeks to go before the horrible blast, Kojiro Kitamura, a representative of the Yokohama Specie Bank in Switzerland, told Per Jacobson, a Swedish adviser to the Bank for International Settlements, that he wanted to contact U.S. representatives and that the only condition Japan insisted on was that it keep its emperor. "He was acting with the consent of Shunichi Kase, the Japanese minister to Switzerland, and General Kiyotomi Okamoto, chief of Japanese European intelligence, and they were in direct contact with Tokyo."[11] On July 14, Jacobson met in Wiesbaden, Germany with OSS representative Allen Dulles (later head of the CIA) and relayed the message that Japan's main demand was "retention of the Emperor." Dulles passed the information to Stimson, but Stimson refused to act on it.
Interestingly, Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy drafted a proposed surrender demand for the Committee of Three (Grew, Stimson, and Navy Secretary James Forrestal.) Their draft was part of Article 12 of the Potsdam Declaration, in which the Allies specified the conditions for Japan's surrender. Under their wording, Japan's government would have been allowed to keep its emperor as part of a "constitutional monarchy." Truman, though, who was influenced by his newly appointed Secretary of State James Byrnes on the ship over to the Potsdam Conference, changed the language of the surrender demand to drop the reference to keeping the emperor.
The bitter irony, of course, is that Truman ultimately allowed Japan to keep its emperor. Had this condition been dropped earlier, there would have been no need for the atom bomb. Rather than let Japan's government "save face," Truman destroyed almost 200,000 faces.
Why did this happen? Why did Truman persist in refusing to clarify what unconditional surrender meant? Alperovitz speculates, with evidence that some will find convincing and others won't, that the reason was to send a signal to Joseph Stalin that the U.S. government was willing to use some pretty vicious methods to dominate in the postwar world. My own view is that Truman and Byrnes wanted vengeance, plain and simple, and cared little about the loss of innocent lives. Let's face it: dropping an atom bomb on two non-militarily strategic cities was not different in principle from fire-bombing Tokyo or Dresden.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say