A good article on Truman wrongly using nuclear weapons

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Because you have no idea what injustice is. You're as misguided as the Japanese militarists. Not in the same way, but perhaps the same amount. Good thing you don't have nukes to go around getting 'poetic justice' from civilians you group blame.

No, I understand.

Japan escaped proper justice. It was just a happy coincidence that Japan sustained a few bruises as a result of the world defending themselves from them.

Note that civilians were not the targets of the A-bombs. They were dropped on military targets.

What you don't understand is the choices being limited to 'nuke 200,000 civilians' or 'millions killed by invading' is arguably propaganda created to justify the use of the nukes. How do you get people to approve? Tell them the only other choice is a lot worse. But you can't even discuss any of that, because you accept the claim hook line and sinker, there's nothing to talk about. That's good propaganda, if that's what it is.

Well it's true that it wasn't an either or choice where Truman had to choose only one or the other. In fact, the A-bombs were paving the way for the coming invasion.

The postwar either/or thing wasn't deliberate propaganda. It was always hoped that Japan might finally surrender at some point before the invasion occurred, even as we continued to prepare for that eventual invasion.

When Japan suddenly surrendered after we dropped the first two A-bombs, everyone was relieved that we would not have to go ahead with a horrific invasion, and it was natural for people to point out that things would have been much worse had we for some inexplicable reason decided not to use them.

You know what I'd like to see a bit more from the right? Some more universal condemnation of the militarism that took over Japan, not just THEM, but when WE do wrong also, instead of whitewashing it. We don't have to be as bad as what they did, to have some things in common sometimes - but we don't have a US type country to nuke US, hence the arrogance and corruption of power.

What arrogance and corruption? We're the good guys.

 

[vegas giants]

I want to put an end to all of this stupidity I keep reading over and over that the demand was for an "unconditional surrender". I can only assume after reading this so often from so many uninformed people that there can be only one conclusion.

None of them have ever actually bothered to read the Potsdam Declaration.

That's right, they are all screaming over and over as usual, from a position of extreme ignorance. And not only that, they seem to revel in their ignorance and none have ever tried to see what the actual declaration actually said.

So here, let me put it all to rest. Once and for all, these are all of the points in the Declaration:

The elimination "for all time of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest"
The occupation of "points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies"
That the "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine,"
That "the Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives"
That "we do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners"

"The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established."
"Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted."
"The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established, in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible government."

And finally, it closes with this:

"We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.

Gee, how about that? Absolutely nowhere in that did it say a single thing about the Emperor! In fact, it did not even say anything about the government being removed. In fact, very specifically it did not even state "Democratic Government", but a government with "Democratic Tendencies". It also goes out of the way to ensure they knew they would keep their sovereignty.

The only time the word "Unconditional" even appears is very specific, and only in relation to the Japanese armed forces. In other words, the unconditional surrender of the military, and nothing but the military.

There, now you all know what was actually stated in the Potsdam Declaration. So shut the hell up already about the Allied powers demanding "unconditional surrender". That was never a demand, and there were conditions in the surrender demand.

Anybody that thinks otherwise is free to point out where in Potsdam there are demands other than what I have pointed out. But now nobody can even try to claim they did not know what the actual demands are, and hopefully shut up about "unconditional surrender". It is really annoying and idiotic.

Only a moron does not know that Japan signed a unconditional surrender. Show any reference that says the surrender was conditional. My god that is laughable


Japan’s surrender made public - HISTORY

 

[vegas giants]

It wasn't over until the Japanese surrendered.


Kind of obvious.

Got it audie murphy. LOL

 

[Oozlefinch]

As I understand it, the issue was not surrender, but unconditional surrender.

Then I suggest this seriously and honestly. That you take the time and effort to start to take the time to learn about such things.

I am not trying to be offensive here, but over and over you have been injecting not only outright lies and untruths, but you seem absolutely astonished when some of us point things out to you that apparently we are all aware of, but you are not.

I just posted the majority of the Potsdam Declaration. Read it. In fact, I encourage you also to go and read the entire original text. What I have provided is really only a condensed version, but it includes the most important points in the demand.

Potsdam Declaration | Birth of the Constitution of Japan

If there is anything I encourage people to do, it is to learn. Learn as much as you can, learn all of your life. Do not just accept something because it agrees with your beliefs or what you want. Do not believe something just because somebody told you so (not even me!). Challenge everything, read original sources if possible. Seek out opposing views, so you can understand both sides of an issue. Then with full knowledge make up your own mind for yourself. Not because you are told by others that you should believe that way but because that is where the facts and the consensus of the evidence points.

But trying to derail a thread into something completely different. Throwing in a bunch of nonsense that does not apply, it is a quick way to be shoveled into the rest of the manure pile as having nothing of importance to the topic. And finally, simply making things up and trying to run with them (even trying to claim that Japan was threatening US oil and rubber imports from SE Asia!), that really does make you look silly and uninformed.

Research, study, learn, don't just parrot what others say because you think you should agree with them. That is how sheep behave, and we have enough sheep already.

 

[vegas giants]

The notion that the atomic bombs caused the Japanese surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, has been, for many Americans and virtually all U.S. history textbooks, the default understanding of how and why the war ended. But minutes of the meetings of the Japanese government reveal a more complex story. The latest and best scholarship on the surrender, based on Japanese records, concludes that the Soviet Union’s unexpected entry into the war against Japan on Aug. 8 was probably an even greater shock to Tokyo than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima two days earlier. Until then, the Japanese had been hoping that the Russians — who had previously signed a nonaggression pact with Japan — might be intermediaries in negotiating an end to the war . As historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa writes in his book “Racing the Enemy,” “Indeed, Soviet attack, not the Hiroshima bomb, convinced political leaders to end the war.”

 

[swing_voter]

The America haters on the left say America can do no right.

In a letter, Truman, the guy who decided whether or not to drop the bomb, said he authorized dropping the bomb because his experts told him an invasion would've cost 250,000 American lives.

Churchill told Truman that the Japanese were more likely to surrender if they could keep their emperor. Truman removed the demand that the Japanese emperor had to step down.

The Japanese didn't surrender.

Hiroshima was bombed.

The Japanese didn't surrender.

Nagasaki was bombed.

The Japanese surrendered.

The emperor remained in power just like Truman promised.

250,000 American lives saved.

 

[vegas giants]

The America haters on the left say America can do no right.

Rangers lead the way!!!!

 

[mike2810]

One can debate if it was right or wrong for the US to use nuclear weapons on Japan back in 1945 till the sun don't shine. Doesn't change the fact the US did bomb Japan with nukes. For those saying it was wrong doesn't help the people of Japan. For saying it was the right decision doesn't help the people of Japan.

If one is to judge the decision shouldn't one base in on what was acceptable back in 1945 and not what is acceptable today. The world learned how terrible a nuclear bomb can be. Hopefully elected leaders will remember that.

 

[Abbazorkzog]

We can though. There are lots of historical records and lots of history books that tell us exactly what happened.

There is no question that Japan was refusing to surrender when both A-bombs were dropped.

There is no question that we dropped the A-bombs on military targets.

I go further, I say that the very existence of the weapons indicates a collective failing of the human species as a whole. The biggest failure of the Manhattan Project was not the bombing, those were just a symptom of deeper issues, but it was allowing this **** to happen which would - also through fault of idiotically-blatant anticommunist nationalist thuggery on the part of the US and China that threatened to destabilize the fragile peace of the immediate-postwar geopolitical environment to essentially hold the rest of the postwar world hostage to these horrifically devastating and powerful nuclear warheads that could essentially ****ing flatten an entire goddamn city and erase an entire economy, industry and population at the turn of a screw, and would furthermore lead to four and a half **** decades of geopolitical terrorism as the Soviet Union and US tore the entire ****ing planet in two over primitive reptilian-brained stupidity.

So I'm neutral on the "wHo WaS wOrSe" irrelevancy of the nuking of Japan (obviously it was Japan who did far worse juxtaposing the two, everyone knows that), I say it was more pure stupidity and failure of human beings to wield immense power in a constructive and baseline-organically-mature way for a thinking organism. That's not just for the US but Japan stupidly getting itself into a position where it could be beaten in such a way as well.

TLDR; its irrelevant, Imperial Japan lost and was the greater of two evils.

 

[Tigerace117]

++ Democracy came in some form to many places in Latin America, and former leftist guerillas often became office holders, some good, some not so good. Pinochet and Montt were not murdered by the opposition they persecuted, but put on trial.

++ Years ago at an international meeting, a radical-type priest who strenuously objected to US policy in Latin America, responded to a procedural point I made with, "Ah, the American obsession with fairness." That's the view a lot of the leftists I have met and worked with had, distinguishing our domestic practices from our foreign policy.

Democracy came to Latin America in spite of the Cuban sponsored guerrillas, not because of them.

None of which changes the fact that the US was never even remotely close to being as bad as Imperial Japan, that trying to equate the two is absurd, and that trying to claim that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “terrorism” as you did earlier, is incredibly ignorant.

 

[vegas giants]

“The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part from a purely military point of view in the defeat of Japan. The use of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender.” - - Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

 

[maxparrish]

It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse."
- General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold
Commanding General of the U.S. Army
Air Forces Under President Truman

That opinion, stated in 1949, isn't news. However there is a vast difference between being on "the verge of collapse" (whatever that vaguely constitutes) and being willing to surrender. More thoughtful Japanese recognized with the loss of Saipan that Japan would eventually lose the war but they had no intention of surrendering under the terms of the allies AND believed that the ketsu go strategy of making allies suffer huge causalities (or even a major battle defeat...e.g. Leyte) would secure far more generous terms in a peace settlement (e.g. no occupation of Japan, Japan tries its own war criminals, retention of some colonial territories....etc.)

Moreover, Hap Arnold's opinions, like those of his subordinate LeMay, were that of all post WWI bomber advocates...that conventional airpower made armies and navy's redundant. During a meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Potsdam Conference, Henry H. Arnold reported that bombing commander Curtis LeMay estimated that Japan would “become a nation without cities” and “will have tremendous difficulty in holding her people together for continued resistance to our terms" - this optimistic view discounted by others because of the failure strategic bombing, as promised by the Army air corp, in driving Germany to surrender.

And yet Arnold also stated in his memoirs that “the abrupt surrender of Japan came more or less as a surprise, for we had figured that we would probably have to drop about four atomic bombs or increase the destructiveness of our B-29 missions by adding the heavy bombers from Europe.”

In fact, just two days after Hiroshima, "Arnold delightedly informed General Carl A. Spaatz, the commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, that “atomic bombing story received largest and heaviest smash play of the entire war with three deck banner headlines evening and morning papers.” , his only regret being that it made the continued bombing of Japan with conventional weapons to obliterates more Japanese cities unneeded.

As luck would have it this information is not only in a book, it's one that you can freely download:

Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism | Robert J. Maddox, Robert J. Maddox | download

Go to page 20 and start learning...

 

[Toggle Almendro]

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."
- U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey's 1946 Study

The Strategic Bombing Survey has been discredited as fraudulent.

Note Chapter Two of the book "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult" by Robert P Newman.

The guy who went to Japan to conduct the survey was a zealot who was already claiming the war would have ended without using the A-bombs.

He deliberately presented leading questions to try to get Japanese leaders to agree with that conclusion.

When he failed to get the answers he wanted, he ignored the responses and fabricated his conclusions without supporting evidence.

 

[vegas giants]

That opinion, stated in 1949, isn't news. However there is a vast difference between being on "the verge of collapse" (whatever that vaguely constitutes) and being willing to surrender. More thoughtful Japanese recognized with the loss of Saipan that Japan would eventually lose the war but they had no intention of surrendering under the terms of the allies AND believed that the ketsu go strategy of making allies suffer huge causalities (or even a major battle defeat...e.g. Leyte) would secure far more generous terms in a peace settlement (e.g. no occupation of Japan, Japan tries its own war criminals, retention of some colonial territories....etc.)

Moreover, Hap Arnold's opinions, like those of his subordinate LeMay, were that of all post WWI bomber advocates...that conventional airpower made armies and navy's redundant. During a meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Potsdam Conference, Henry H. Arnold reported that bombing commander Curtis LeMay estimated that Japan would “become a nation without
cities” and “will have tremendous difficulty in holding her people together for continued resistance to our terms - this optimistic view discounted by others because of the failure strategic bombing, as promised by the Army air corp, to drive Germany to surrender.

And yet Arnold also stated in his memoirs that “the abrupt surrender of Japan came more or less as a surprise, for we had figured that we would probably have to drop about four atomic bombs or increase the destructiveness of our B-29 missions by adding the heavy bombers from Europe.”

In fact, just two days after Hiroshima, "Arnold delightedly informed General Carl A. Spaatz, the commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, that “atomic bombing story received largest and heaviest smash play of the entire war with three deck banner headlines evening and morning papers.” , his only regret being that it made the continued bombing of Japan with conventional weapons to obliterates more Japanese cities unneeded.

As luck would have it this information is not only in a book, it's one that you can freely download:

Hiroshima in History: The Myths of Revisionism | Robert J. Maddox, Robert J. Maddox | download

Go to page 20 and start learning...

Dismiss one. Dismiss 2. You cant dismiss all of them. Its desperation that you even try

“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.” --Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay.

 

[Nickyjo]

Japan refused any form of surrender to the US until August 10, regardless of conditions.

On August 10 they finally offered to surrender with the condition that we guarantee that Hirohito would retain unlimited dictatorial power.

By the time they made that offer we had already dropped both A-bombs, so the dispute over this condition was not a factor in the A-bombings.

We of course refused to allow Hirohito to retain unlimited dictatorial power. Our reply said that he would be subordinate to MacArthur. A couple days later Japan agreed.

Did not know that. Thanks.

 

[Nickyjo]

Then I suggest this seriously and honestly. That you take the time and effort to start to take the time to learn about such things.

I am not trying to be offensive here, but over and over you have been injecting not only outright lies and untruths, but you seem absolutely astonished when some of us point things out to you that apparently we are all aware of, but you are not.

I just posted the majority of the Potsdam Declaration. Read it. In fact, I encourage you also to go and read the entire original text. What I have provided is really only a condensed version, but it includes the most important points in the demand.

Potsdam Declaration | Birth of the Constitution of Japan

If there is anything I encourage people to do, it is to learn. Learn as much as you can, learn all of your life. Do not just accept something because it agrees with your beliefs or what you want. Do not believe something just because somebody told you so (not even me!). Challenge everything, read original sources if possible. Seek out opposing views, so you can understand both sides of an issue. Then with full knowledge make up your own mind for yourself. Not because you are told by others that you should believe that way but because that is where the facts and the consensus of the evidence points.

But trying to derail a thread into something completely different. Throwing in a bunch of nonsense that does not apply, it is a quick way to be shoveled into the rest of the manure pile as having nothing of importance to the topic. And finally, simply making things up and trying to run with them (even trying to claim that Japan was threatening US oil and rubber imports from SE Asia!), that really does make you look silly and uninformed.

Research, study, learn, don't just parrot what others say because you think you should agree with them. That is how sheep behave, and we have enough sheep already.

Someone already corrected me on this question. Thanks.

 

[vegas giants]

The Strategic Bombing Survey has been discredited as fraudulent.

Note Chapter Two of the book "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult" by Robert P Newman.

The guy who went to Japan to conduct the survey was a zealot who was already claiming the war would have ended without using the A-bombs.

He deliberately presented leading questions to try to get Japanese leaders to agree with that conclusion.

When he failed to get the answers he wanted, he ignored the responses and fabricated his conclusions without supporting evidence.

It was the best survey ever done by the military.


And my evidence is as good as yours.



Go after one.....I got ten more

 

[vegas giants]

“We didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.” Brig. Gen. Carter Clarke

 

[Toggle Almendro]

And yet Arnold also stated in his memoirs that “the abrupt surrender of Japan came more or less as a surprise, for we had figured that we would probably have to drop about four atomic bombs or increase the destructiveness of our B-29 missions by adding the heavy bombers from Europe.”

Actually that is from the same quote.

Gar Alperovitz left off the second half of Arnold's quote to make it appear that he said the opposite of what he was really said. What you are quoting there is the missing second half of his quote.

 

[vegas giants]

Actually that is from the same quote.

Gar Alperovitz left off the second half of Arnold's quote to make it appear that he said the opposite of what he was really said. What you are quoting there is the missing second half of his quote.

Oh look folks.....a claim without evidence

 

[swing_voter]

The Strategic Bombing Survey has been discredited as fraudulent.

Note Chapter Two of the book "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult" by Robert P Newman.

The guy who went to Japan to conduct the survey was a zealot who was already claiming the war would have ended without using the A-bombs.

He deliberately presented leading questions to try to get Japanese leaders to agree with that conclusion.

When he failed to get the answers he wanted, he ignored the responses and fabricated his conclusions without supporting evidence.

Sounds like a left winger out to damage America.

 

[vegas giants]

“When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the Emperor.” That’s from “The Pathology of Power,” by Norman Cousins.

 

[Oozlefinch]

The Japanese didn't surrender.

Hiroshima was bombed.

The Japanese didn't surrender.

Nagasaki was bombed.

The Japanese surrendered.

There is a bit more to it than that.

I have read studies that without the entry of the Soviets, 3 or 4 (or more) bombs might have been needed. And this was because they could simply take the time to sit around and wait. They were safe and secure inside their island nation. They had no direct threats at that time, and could see what happened.

But then the Soviets entered the picture. And it was not as big of a threat as many make it out to be. Yea, Russians got big tanks. No, Russians not driving tanks to Japan. Japan big, Russian amphibious capability small.

But it did drive home that the longer they delayed the decision, the more of their Soldiers would be captured and killed. This is important because those tens of thousands of soldiers were to be part of the defense of the home island. But largely they were disposable, because they were there. But it did mean that the nation that they had thought of as their "last ally" was gone.

Remove the Soviet invasion, and 4 or 5 days later Yokohama would have gone up in a mushroom cloud. Now by this time the Council might well be 4-2 in favor of the war, after al they had lost huge cities and more people killed due to conventional bombing raids and firebomb raids.

Then another 5 days or so, more than likely Kyoto would be gone. The home of the old Imperial Capitol, it was hoped that by then they could reach a decision. And 4 bombs wiping out 4 cities in a few weeks would be destroying the morale of the nation. However, they would not have long left to decide. The decision had already been made that by bomb 5, it would be dropped in Tokyo, over the Imperial Palace. Then followed by an invasion into the chaos, probably trying to find a figurehead to replace the Emperor who could surrender to them.

The entry of the Soviets shortened the war, but did not end it. This is simply that Japan was an Island Nation, and they knew the Soviets were no threat to them. The Soviets taking out their bases on the mainland would ultimately have made them surrender about as much as loosing Gibraltar would have made the UK surrender. Or the US to surrender if somehow Japan had managed to take all of Alaska. They knew that the Soviets had absolutely no capability to directly threaten them.

 

[vegas giants]

There is a bit more to it than that.

I have read studies that without the entry of the Soviets, 3 or 4 (or more) bombs might have been needed. And this was because they could simply take the time to sit around and wait. They were safe and secure inside their island nation. They had no direct threats at that time, and could see what happened.

But then the Soviets entered the picture. And it was not as big of a threat as many make it out to be. Yea, Russians got big tanks. No, Russians not driving tanks to Japan. Japan big, Russian amphibious capability small.

But it did drive home that the longer they delayed the decision, the more of their Soldiers would be captured and killed. This is important because those tens of thousands of soldiers were to be part of the defense of the home island. But largely they were disposable, because they were there. But it did mean that the nation that they had thought of as their "last ally" was gone.

Remove the Soviet invasion, and 4 or 5 days later Yokohama would have gone up in a mushroom cloud. Now by this time the Council might well be 4-2 in favor of the war, after al they had lost huge cities and more people killed due to conventional bombing raids and firebomb raids.

Then another 5 days or so, more than likely Kyoto would be gone. The home of the old Imperial Capitol, it was hoped that by then they could reach a decision. And 4 bombs wiping out 4 cities in a few weeks would be destroying the morale of the nation. However, they would not have long left to decide. The decision had already been made that by bomb 5, it would be dropped in Tokyo, over the Imperial Palace. Then followed by an invasion into the chaos, probably trying to find a figurehead to replace the Emperor who could surrender to them.

The entry of the Soviets shortened the war, but did not end it. This is simply that Japan was an Island Nation, and they knew the Soviets were no threat to them. The Soviets taking out their bases on the mainland would ultimately have made them surrender about as much as loosing Gibraltar would have made the UK surrender. Or the US to surrender if somehow Japan had managed to take all of Alaska. They knew that the Soviets had absolutely no capability to directly threaten them.

I think its great that everyone has an opinion even when they are wrong

 

[Nickyjo]

Democracy came to Latin America in spite of the Cuban sponsored guerrillas, not because of them.

++ Wrong. They were major pushers of reform and persecuted because of it. If they accepted help from an oppressive government in Cuba to fight their own fascist-like oppressive governments, they are not to be blamed any more than the US was for allying ourselves with Stalin to fight a bigger fascist.

++ And if you felt you were being persectuted by an economic system that preached Adam Smith, you might open a book about Marx.

None of which changes the fact that the US was never even remotely close to being as bad as Imperial Japan, that trying to equate the two is absurd, and that trying to claim that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “terrorism” as you did earlier, is incredibly ignorant.

++ Terrorism is defined as the use of violence, often against civilians, to attain a political objective. In other posts I made clear that I am not equating the horrors of, say, Nanking, with US support of oppression, only saying that in the universe of international actors in the world, US hands are not unclean. When we praised the rulers of Argentina, we were praising neo-Nazi type rule, complete with anti-Semitism. (At the time, after the US, Israel and Russia, Argentina had perhaps the largest Jewish population in the world. Argentina's anti-Jewish flavored persecution decimated parts of their scientific community.)