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A good article on Truman wrongly using nuclear weapons

Oozlefinch said:
Huh?

We did not "show ourselves opposed to the type of brutal things Japan did in Asia?"

The final break between us and our former WWI ally was the Rape of Nanking. Where the Japanese Army slaughtered over a quarter million unarmed civilians. Where mass beheadings were reported in the Japanese newspapers like it was a sporting event.

Care to show me where the US did things like that? Where even 6 weeks after the capitulation of the city, murders, mass executions, and systematic raped occurred?



1938 letter from Dr. Robert Wilson to his family about the horrors he witnessed while working at a hospital in Nanking.

Then there is this. A letter from the Legation Secretary of the German Embassy to his own Foreign Ministry in Berlin:

And I am aware much will probably be censored, and the descriptions are brutal.



And you dare to say the US "pretty much did the same thing"?
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My points: 1- that in this hemisphere the US installed and armed and excused brutal dictatorships who did some of the same things, though on a much smaller numerical scale in any one country, running “only” to the tens of thousands. The Carter administration was excoriated by the right for withdrawing support from some of these, but Reagan reversed that and explicitly supported dictators. In Argentina, if they arrested a pregnant woman, they waited til she gave birth before killing her. Imagine going thru labor knowing you would die after delivery. In Guatemala, the dictator had every living thing killed in some villages. Reagan praised him. He in turn said he would accept execution for his crimes so long as Reagan was put up against the wall next to him. Many thousands of horrifying deaths elsewhere in the region. 2- the US rivalry with Japan that led to the war was not based on the latter’s human rights record.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Uh....what? The US absolutely did show itself opposed to the atrocities Japan committed in China and elsewhere and from very early on. Which was why Japan attacked in the first place, as they saw the US being unwilling to support their rampage through Asia as a direct threat. Your attempt to draw an equivalence between the two is bizarre. There was no American equivalent of the Rape of Nanking or the “Co-Prosperity Sphere”(a rather cynical name for Japan’s colonial slavery system at that).

From what it sounds like, you don’t understand much of anything about the Pacific Theater.
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US fought Japan over rivalry in the Pacific, not human rights, though highlighting their crimes helped explain and justify our hostility to ourselves. As FDR said of a brutal dictator we supported in Latin America, “He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s OUR son of a bitch.”
 
vegas giants said:
Who dies by sitting on your ship and waiting? Japan was no real threat
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We had a weapon that could end a war that killed 60 million people and you think Truman should have just sat around for weeks, months and wait for the Japanese to decide if they wanted to surrender or not?

You're not looking at this realistically, at how they were thinking at the time. They wanted the war over, period.

Nobody had a stomach for the war to be dragged on another, week, month, whatever. Everyone was sick of war. AND as I said God forbid if Americans kept dying and Truman sat on a weapon that could have prevented those deaths.
 
SenorXm/Sirius said:
We had a weapon that could end a war that killed 60 million people and you think Truman should have just sat around for weeks, months and wait for the Japanese to decide if they wanted to surrender or not?

You're not looking at this realistically, at how they were thinking at the time. They wanted the war over, period.

Nobody had a stomach for the war to be dragged on another, week, month, whatever. Everyone was sick of war. AND as I said God forbid if Americans kept dying and Truman sat on a weapon that could have prevented those deaths.
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We will just disagree. Those women and children did not need to die at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end that war. It was over. Truman made a political decision not a military one. And it was the wrong one
 
Nickyjo said:
My points: 1- that in this hemisphere the US installed and armed and excused brutal dictatorships who did some of the same things, though on a much smaller numerical scale in any one country, running “only” to the tens of thousands. The Carter administration was excoriated by the right for withdrawing support from some of these, but Reagan reversed that and explicitly supported dictators. In Argentina, if they arrested a pregnant woman, they waited til she gave birth before killing her. Imagine going thru labor knowing you would die after delivery. In Guatemala, the dictator had every living thing killed in some villages. Reagan praised him. He in turn said he would accept execution for his crimes so long as Reagan was put up against the wall next to him. Many thousands of horrifying deaths elsewhere in the region. 2- the US rivalry with Japan that led to the war was not based on the latter’s human rights record.
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What makes you think that if the communists came to power in these countries, like they did in Cuba, things would be any better. Look at all the imprisonments, tortures, rapes and murders the Castro regime committed.
 
vegas giants said:
We will just disagree. Those women and children did not need to die at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end that war. It was over. Truman made a political decision not a military one. And it was the wrong one
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I admit it was partly a political decision. But again, unless you were there, it's not fair project today's morals and beliefs and behavior on what was going on then..They wanted the war over, period.

BTW I'm sure you heard this argument before, but many more woman and children died from conventional bombings, especially the fire bombings, then from the abombs...

But we;ll agree to disagree.

stay safe..
 
vegas giants said:
Why wait in any war? Why not nuke Afghanistan and iraq in the beginning of their wars? Why not always just use nukes now?

These are real questions
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Absolutely they are real questions. The way I figure it, the answer to that question is that when something unpleasant needs to be done, the best course of action is to just go ahead and do it. Waiting isn't going to make the task any easier... and doing something that doesn't need to be done is just a distraction.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, I can't see any difference using nuclear weapons would have made. It wouldn't have addressed the underlying issues in either instance. But if it were otherwise and they can make a difference, absolutely you use them early. Waiting profits you nothing - it only risks losing the initiative.
 
Cordelier said:
Sure... just as soon as you give me a citation on the Japanese Government pre-Hiroshima peace overtures.
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Cordelier said:
So why wait? Seriously... if there was a concrete reason to wait - if they had made a credible peace overture to anyone that had a chance of being accepted, I can see the reason to wait. But I can't understand waiting just for the sake of waiting. If I were Truman and you advised me to just blockade Japan and sit on our asses, my first question would be "Why should we do that?"... what are you going to say to that? "Well, they might decide to surrender on their own, Mr. President...". "Is there anything to support that belief? Have any of our embassies received any overtures?"... "Well, no...".... "Well, that's your answer then..."
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Your nonsensical invented quotes aside, the issue is simple. If value was placed on human life, you made the effort to obtain a surrender. If no value was placed on human life, you went straight to dropping the bombs.

All the rest is fallacy, excuses, and sometimes lies it seems.
 
vegas giants said:
Why wait in any war? Why not nuke Afghanistan and iraq in the beginning of their wars? Why not always just use nukes now?
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It's rather telling that the same president did not use atomic bombs in the Korean war, with the US suffering a lot of casualties instead to fight it conventionally - with the political cost not only of that war, but of firing the extremely popular MacArthur who wanted to use atomic bombs. Truman did not run for re-election.
 
Craig234 said:
Your nonsensical invented quotes aside, the issue is simple. If value was placed on human life, you made the effort to obtain a surrender. If no value was placed on human life, you went straight to dropping the bombs.

All the rest is fallacy, excuses, and sometimes lies it seems.
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The time to place valuation on human life is before you make the decision to go to war. It is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest it factors much into the equation after that point.
 
vegas giants said:
We will just disagree. Those women and children did not need to die at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end that war. It was over. Truman made a political decision not a military one. And it was the wrong one
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What surprises me a lot is you fail to mention the rest of the Japanese cities FDR and Truman bombed in not only Japan but in Germany too.

And you seem to believe in magic concerning the Emperor of Japan.
 
Craig234 said:
It's rather telling that the same president did not use atomic bombs in the Korean war, with the US suffering a lot of casualties instead to fight it conventionally - with the political cost not only of that war, but of firing the extremely popular MacArthur who wanted to use atomic bombs. Truman did not run for re-election.
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General MacArthur knew how to end wars. Truman fired him for that talent.
 
Craig234 said:
Your nonsensical invented quotes aside, the issue is simple. If value was placed on human life, you made the effort to obtain a surrender. If no value was placed on human life, you went straight to dropping the bombs.

All the rest is fallacy, excuses, and sometimes lies it seems.
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Japan was flooded with war leaflets telling them the names of cities to be destroyed 5 days earlier. And urged all Japanese to flee the cities on the leaflet.

Blame Japan who was in truth extremely ruthless and not Truman.
 
Oozlefinch said:
Kinda hard to do when the last attempt was outright rejected by the Prime Minister, who said it was not even worthy if being talked about ever again. And the Privy Council unanimously rejected it 8-0.

Hell, even with 2 bombs dropped and the Soviets storming through Manchuria and Korea they still could not agree to surrender.
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Add some documentation for your claim about the history. Here's yet another article:

Many of the top American military leaders opposed the use of the atomic bomb including General Eisenhower, General MacArthur and Admiral Leahy. Despite strong objections, the weapons were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a demonstration of military might. The Japanese kept the war effort going until a few days later when the Soviet Union attacked their forces they finally gave up. But why did the Americans refuse their surrender the first time around?

Months earlier American Intelligence had received a negotiation of surrender but initially rejected them. The key reason why the Allied Forces refused Japan’s initial surrender because it was not an unconditional surrender. If Japan was given their surrender terms they would have room to move, but the Allies pushed for an unconditional surrender in order for the Emperor could be prosecuted for war crimes.

General MacArthur worked with the Emperor of Japan in order to reestablish the nation. He determined that the Japanese military leaders were to blame for the war rather than Emperor Hirohito, and General Hideki Tojo would take the fall for war crimes.
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So, 1. Refuse peace without the right to prosecute emperor. 2. Kill hundreds of thousands with nuclear bombs over the issue. 3. Get unconditional surrender. 4. Do not prosecute emperor, as originally requested and rejected. Sure was worth hundreds of thousands of lives for that. The people defending it, are the people arguing to treat the hundreds of thousands of lives as having no value.

The Key Reason Why America Refused Japan's First Offer To Surrender - World War Wings.
 
Cordelier said:
The time to place valuation on human life is before you make the decision to go to war. It is disingenuous in the extreme to suggest it factors much into the equation after that point.
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Completely wrong. You do not place value on human life and you fight against such value passionately. To those who DO, it has value before, during, and after war. That's why war should be avoided if possible, not only profitable; why war should be minimized when necessary. Why peace should be sought as much as possible. You disagree since you place no value on the lives of the Japanese civilians.
 
Cordelier said:
Absolutely they are real questions. The way I figure it, the answer to that question is that when something unpleasant needs to be done, the best course of action is to just go ahead and do it. Waiting isn't going to make the task any easier... and doing something that doesn't need to be done is just a distraction.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, I can't see any difference using nuclear weapons would have made. It wouldn't have addressed the underlying issues in either instance. But if it were otherwise and they can make a difference, absolutely you use them early. Waiting profits you nothing - it only risks losing the initiative.
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That is ridiculous. What underlying issue would cause nuclear bombs not to work in Afghanistan and Iraq?
 
Craig234 said:
Your nonsensical invented quotes aside, the issue is simple. If value was placed on human life, you made the effort to obtain a surrender. If no value was placed on human life, you went straight to dropping the bombs.

All the rest is fallacy, excuses, and sometimes lies it seems.
Click to expand...

Value was placed on human life. That’s why the bombs were dropped instead of a conventional invasion, which would have killed far more.
 
Nickyjo said:
US fought Japan over rivalry in the Pacific, not human rights, though highlighting their crimes helped explain and justify our hostility to ourselves. As FDR said of a brutal dictator we supported in Latin America, “He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s OUR son of a bitch.”
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Wrong on both counts. The direct reason for the war was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The motivation for that attack was American opposition to Japan’s constant atrocities. The US never supported anyone who even came remotely close to being as bad as Imperial Japan, so your quote is meaningless.

Like I said before, you don’t seem to know anything about the Pacific Theater.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Value was placed on human life. That’s why the bombs were dropped instead of a conventional invasion, which would have killed far more.
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No invasion was necessary according to our military leaders
 
The Nation said:
Consider the small and little-noticed plaque hanging in the National Museum of the US Navy that accompanies the replica of “Little Boy,” the weapon used against the people of Hiroshima: In its one paragraph, it makes clear that Truman’s “political advisors” overruled the military in determining the way in which the end of the war in Japan would be approached.
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I don't see any quotation of the plaque.

Given Gar Alperovitz's history of fraud, it is safe to assume that the plaque says the opposite of what is claimed.


The Nation said:
Adm. William Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir I Was There that “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.
Asked on August 17 by a New York Times reporter whether the atomic bomb caused Japan to surrender, Arnold said that “the Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell, because the Japanese had lost control of their own air.”
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that “the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan…”
Even the famous “hawk” Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Twenty-First Bomber Command, went public the month after the bombing, telling the press that “the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
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Not one of those comments were made before the A-bombs were dropped.

Hindsight is nice I guess. But hindsight should not be mislabeled as a view that was expressed during the war.


The Nation said:
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, for his part, stated in his memoirs that when notified by Secretary of War Henry Stimson of the decision to use atomic weapons, he “voiced to him 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…”
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Ike only told a single person (Stimson).

After Stimson told him that he was an idiot who didn't know what he was talking about, Ike kept quiet and never shared his ideas about Japanese surrender with anyone else until many years later, after his second term as president had ended and he was retired from political life.

But even if Ike had actually been convincing when he presented his arguments to Stimson, it was too late to stop the A-bombs from being used at that point. The final orders to use the A-bombs had already been approved and sent out to the military, and Truman had left Potsdam and was preparing to set sail back to Washington. He was still at sea when Hiroshima was bombed.


The Nation said:
American intelligence had broken the Japanese codes, knew the Japanese government was trying to negotiate surrender through Moscow,
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It wasn't clear to American intelligence exactly what Japan was trying to achieve. It seemed most likely that they were trying to achieve an armistice and avoid surrender.


The Nation said:
and had long advised that the expected early August Russian declaration of war, along with assurances that Japan’s Emperor would be allowed to stay as a powerless figurehead, would bring surrender long before the first step in a November US invasion, three months later, could begin.
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Some people advocated for those measures. Others advocated against them. No one was foolish enough to say that something "would" bring about surrender. No one knew what it would take to achieve surrender.


The Nation said:
Historians still do not have a definitive answer to why the bomb was used.
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Yes they do. The A-bombs were used to weaken Japan's ability to resist our coming invasion.
 
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