Razada said:
Drakulea said:
Razada said:
IvoryTowerGamer said:
Razada said:
Stop talking about the nukes like they were payback. Go read some history, I know it sounds contraversial but the nukes saved lives overall (Go do some research into the predicted casualty figures if the states had invaded japan + the measures the japanese government was taking in preparation for that eventuallity. Once you know at least half as much as I do, troll away) I know it was horrible but on some levels it was jutified. (I dont hate the Japanese. And I am British, just throwin that out there, not some gun-toting american patriot).
As someone who has studied this a good amount, the current idea is that the Japanese war machine was already on the verge of collapse by the time of Hiroshima/Nagasaki. The "the A-bomb actually saved lives" argument is typically found in older texts that came out within the first decades after the end of war.
Wrote a 4,000 word essay on the subject and I still believe that it saved lives. On some level.
Plus there is the whole question of the Soviets. Then again, this particular branch of history (What If) history is a bit pointless on many levels. They were dropped, they ended the war, they might have saved lives, they might not have, more people died in the firebombing of Tokyo then in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, concentrating only on the atomic bombs makes people ignore the carpet bombing of other civilian areas.
I still believe that an American land invasion would have ended incredibly badly for both sides, mainly the japanese. And that the bombs shortened the war.
I guess I have just aruged for and against my own point. I guess what I am trying to say is the atomic bombs were not as bad as people seem to think, casualty wise (Whilst still being horrific) and it is a fact that the dropping of said bombs caused the Japanese to surrender.
What would you say to atomic bombs being dropped on your home town since they "were not as bad as people seem to think"? Have your parents turned into little more than silhouettes irradiated into walls?
People like you are the reason why history repeats itself.
"So the USA carried out atomic terrorism ( i.e. deliberate murder of civilians and non-combatants to achieve political ends ). Big deal."
Yes, it IS a big deal. The USA is the only nation on Earth that used nukes, for all its Holier Than Though posturing. And it used those nukes on a nation that was defeated and that, moreover,
sought terms of surrender!.
I don't know what the hell you wrote in your 4,000-long war crime apologia, but it's all a bunch of ultra-nationalist crap.
Tell me,were you aware of this?
"The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time.
It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it."
J. Samuel Walker, "The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update," Diplomatic History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter 1990), pp. 97-114. (Quoted in Alperovitz, 1995.)
You might want to check out that book, lest your brains explode from the realization that your fascistoid "USA is sinless" dogma is pure crap.
Remember, this is the USA. The nation which
jailed Japanese citizens for the CRIME of being Japanese . ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment ) ( yes, it's a well-sourced article if you bother to look )
And the Americans have the GALL to preach to others about democracy,freedom and tolerance.
It's people like you that encourage, tolerate and then minimize the Einzatsgruppen-like rampages of American Warriors of Freedom (pah), the Mai Lais, the Hadithas and the FOB Ramrod kill teams.
I am not American.
Thought I would state that first.
"You might want to check out that book, lest your brains explode from the realization that your fascistoid "USA is sinless" dogma is pure crap."
Jesus fucking christ. Pointing out that the firebombings of Tokyo killed more people then Hiroshima or Nagasaki combined makes me someone who claims the USA is sinless? Far from it. I believe that the majority of the people within Allied Bomber Command during the war should have been tried with War Crimes at the end of the war. I believe that people concentrate too much on the atomic bombs because it blinds them to the other things that the Allies did during the war. Brits point at the A-Bombs and say "Look, The Americans are evil" and forget what Bomber Harris did to Dresden. Americans point at the A-Bombs and say "Sorry we did that" and forget to look at little further, to look at Tokyo.
The world looks at the A-Bombs and go "So the allies overstepped their mark once during the war" and forget the Warsaw uprising, forget how many lost their lives during the carpet-bombing of Germany. I believe it is negative to concentrate on the atomic bombs as the sole crime against humanity that the Aliies committed.
I do not believe that the Americans are sinless, far from it, you utter tool. I wanted to avoid insulting you within this post but I cannot avoid doing so it would seem. I am a Brit, moreover, I am ashamed of what the Allies got away with during the war. I am ashamed that we succeeded in getting away with the things that we did. I am insulted by your groundless accusations.
You have ignored parts of my post. The fact I stated that the bombs were horrific being part of the post you ignored.
The Allies commited crimes against humanity during world war two. The atomic bombs were merely one of these crimes.
And finally...
You are ignorant if you believe there is only one answer within the study of history. Historians disagree, no one historians view is gospel truth. When I studied the subject I agreed with the view that the bombs shortened the war and could have saved lives. I came to this decision myself, through my study.
Anything else you wish to say should be confined to a PM as this discussion is wildly off-topic. But please ser, dont be a tool. I have nothing wrong with you countering my argument or disagreeing with me, but ignoring parts of my post, insulting me, insulting the work I have done, all of this was unneccesary. Is any piece of historical writing that disagrees with your own views "all a bunch of ultra-nationalist crap."? If so I fear for your understanding of the past.
So historians disagree.
Should we then put a question mark after the word "Holocaust" then? Since, you know... historians disagree.
Oh there are shades and nuances no doubt, but there are also intractable cores of truth.
So statements like :
- (Curtis) LeMay: The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb." ( Alperovitz, 1995, p. 336. )
- ( Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy ) : "... in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages." ( William D. Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441 )
- Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ( Oct. 5, 1945 ) : "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." ( 5. Alperowitz, p. 329. )
( we had Airforce and Navy, now from the Army )
- General Douglas MacArthur : "The war might have ended weeks earlier if the United States had agreed,
as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." ( Cousins, Pathology of Power, 1987, p. 71, )
are all my inventions?
You think the opposition to using the nukes from high-ranking US officers is something I made up? Something that is subject to the "nuances" of history?
No, it's something
you chose to ignore in your "research".
Another element of the "nuke mythology" is that the Japanese refused to surrender and were all a bunch of fanatics. Propaganda bull-crap.
On repeated occasions : ( main source is Dennis D. Wainstock, The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996)).
- 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."
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."
- 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."
- 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.
- On July 12 1945, 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.
Again, no result.
So what exactly
did you research when you seem to have glossed over the fact that the Japanese had
one condition, a condition that Truman
agreed to after dropping the nukes : keep the emperor.
I emphasize that the Japanese surrender
was NOT unconditional! . The one condition imposed by the Japanese even BEFORE the nukes were dropped was AGREED to : keep the emperor.
The true reason why Truman turned away the very kind of peace proposals he later accepted upon surrendering is simple and horrific : Americans like genocide. Ask the Native Americans and how Manifest Destiny worked out for them. Better yet, ask the Filipinos how the American "Liberation" worked back in 1900.
So your essay is, I'm sorry, founded on flag-waving American propaganda.
It may or may not interest you how history was rewritten to actually justify an unjustifiable act, but you could begin researching how James B. Conant, Harvard University's president 1933 ? 1953, and a major nuke proponent began steps to whitewash the nukings.
Short version is that Conant tapped Henry Stimson, a well respected figure at the time having been Secretary of War between 1940-1945 among other things ( they actually called it "War" back then, not the "Defense" Orwellian euphemisms we have today ). He asked him to put his signature under an article praising the nukings.
The actual author of the whitewash article was to be Harvey Bundy, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project although it was actually Harvey Bundy's son, McGeorge Bundy, who authored the article. You may or may not be aware that McGeorge Bundy would later rise to preeminence for his "Killing Gooks is Fun" stance, a major proponent for intervention in Vietnam, during the Kennedy administration.
This article was seminal for the two main falsehoods justifying the use of nukes :
- That if the bomb hadn't been used, "thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of American soldiers might be [sic] killed or permanently injured."
- That "nobody in authority in Potsdam was satisfied that the Japanese would surrender on terms acceptable to the Allies without further bitter fighting."
Moreover, any and all references to "unconditional surrender" were erased. Can't have the world knowing that Truman willfully rejected the very terms he later accepted after dropping the nukes,can we.
The article in question was published in the February 1947 "Harper's" issue and the fabrications, who were,of course, EXTREMELY politically convenient, had been re-iterated ever since.
And like Ribbentrop said "A lie repeated often enough becomes truth".
And lies repeated for 60 years become dogma.
So like I said, I don't know what military-industrial complex-vested sources you consulted, but it's all a bunch of utter,fictional, CRAP.
You want what-if history? Buy into the whole bull about how Japan refused to surrender when in fact made REPEATED calls for terms that Truman accepted only after he nuked himself some Japs.
As Americans can attest, genocide is fun,apparently.
P.S. : Did you know that there was a media blackout in terms of pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for fear of the American public deciding that "nukes aren't cool"? The first images of the nuke ground zeros emerged barely in 1952.
