All war is a crime. There is no such thing as a “good war.” As the great Benjamin Franklin said, “there is no good war; and no bad peace.”
We are now in the midst of the annual debate over the atomic bombing of Japan by the United States. Seventy years ago this week, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing or injuring some 140,000 people. A few days later, a second atomic weapon was dropped on Nagasaki, causing 80,000 casualties. Most of the dead in both cities were civilians.
Passionate debate has raged ever since between those who condemn the nuclear bombing of almost defenseless Japan as a war crime, and those who insist the attacks spared the US and its allies having to invade fight-to-the-death Japan.
I don’t know the answer to this question.
In 1945, my late father, Henry Margolis, was serving in the Pacific with US Fifth Marine Amphibious Division. The Fifth was slated to lead the amphibious invasion of Japan. After witnessing the fanatical Japanese defense of Okinawa, it appeared that invading Japan’s mainland would be a very bloody affair. My father could have died on Japan’s beaches.
But what was left of Japan by August, 1945? By spring, 1944, almost all of its maritime commerce, and all of its oil and other strategic material, had been cut off by American submarine packs and intensive coastal mining. In effect, the US did to Japan what Germany had never been able to do to that other island realm, Britain.
Japan’s air force was grounded by lack of fuel (as was Germany’s), its fleet could not leave port because of oil scarcity, the nation’s factories were shut down due to lack of raw materials, and Japan’s people faced starvation.
In March, 1945, the US Army Air Force bomber command under Gen. Curtis LeMay began carpet bombing Japan’s cities from bases in the Mariana Islands. American war planners sought to destroy Japan’s industries and will to resist. It’s from this period that LeMay’s famous quote came: ‘We’ll bomb’em back to the Stone Age.”
In the ensuing nine months of massive bombing, the US Army Air Force destroyed 40% of Japan’s cities and large towns. On 9/10 March, 1945, in a mass raid code-named “Meetinghouse,” 346 US B-29 heavy bombers showered Tokyo with bombs and incendiary devices made from jellied gasoline.
Most of Tokyo and other Japanese cities were made up of wooden structures. Intensive firestorms engulfed Tokyo, sucking up all the air and burning it. This same fire spreading technique had been perfected in bombing German cities such as Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and Stuttgart.
Terrified civilians ran through the burning chaos. Many jumped in the Tokyo River to avoid being burned alive, or to quench their bodies, burning from jellied gasoline. In this one hideous night, an estimated 100,000 Japanese civilians were burned to death in Tokyo alone. This is believed to have been the single most destructive air raid in history.
Soon after, the rest of Japan’s cities and towns came under massive fire-bombing attacks. Special attention was paid to Kobe, Nagoya and Osaka: 8.1 square miles of Osaka were turned into smoking heaps of rubble.
In all, the US strategic bombing campaign against Japan (including the nuclear attacks) in which 656,000 tons of bombs were dropped (killed an estimated 800,000 to one million civilians). Forty percent of Japan’s cities and towns were left in ruins. A third of Japanese were left homeless.
Germany had been hit with 1.3 million tons of bombs.
As if Japan’s woes could not get worse, on 9 August, 1944 1.7 million Soviet troops invaded Japanese-held Manchuria and Korea, slicing through the depleted Japanese Kwantung Army. Washington feared the Red Army might land in Japan before the US did.
So was President Harry Truman justified in ordering A-bombs dropped on prostrate Japan? With the wisdom of hindsight, one can probably conclude that he was not. General Dwight Eisenhower, one of America’s finest soldiers, was totally opposed to using the A-bomb. Ike was overruled by Truman.
Why two bombs and not just one? Why not offshore? Or far in Japan’s north?
War turned sane, decent men into monsters and criminals. What if Japan had a nuclear weapon? It certainly would have used it against US forces.
My father landed and fought on Iwo Jima. He survived. But he never spoke ill of the Japanese, and went on to become a great admirer of Japan. My own view: using the bomb, as the wicked Tallyrand said, “was worse than a crime; a mistake.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/08/eric-margolis/whats-worse-2/
Man, good damn thing we will NEVER lose a war that might put us on the other side of the world’s hatred.
I’m so happy that all our war manufacturing is now dependent on China, NOTHING could go wrong with this plan/state of events. Nothing.
If I need to put in a sarc tag, you might need another cup of coffee, soda, or lunch.
Fucking evil we are, so fucking evil.
The only good Jap is a dead Jap.
If even one American life was saved as a result of incinerating 100,000 Japs, then it was worth it.
American lives are precious, Jap lives are not.
War is hell and we have a DUTY and a RIGHT to do whatever the fuck we want to the enemy.
We must send a message to the world … don’t fuck with the USA!USA!USA! … and going “easy” on enemy soldiers, …. AND civilian men, women, and children is for pussies. American’s aren’t pussies.
There is nothing better in war than to make men shit their pants, to hear the lamentations of their women, and to strike terror in the hearts of children.
Too bad we didn’t kill 200,000.
Stuck
Should I post pictures of dead babies?
Remember the good old days?
We almost met back then. You were coming to my house to beat me up.
Interesting take with some of the same observations, but different conclusion.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: five reasons why President Truman made the right decision:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/guest-bloggers/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-five-reasons-why-president-truman-made-the-right-decision.html
Bob.
An objective view: https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/debating-morality-hiroshima?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Gweekly&utm_campaign=20150811&utm_content=readmoretext&mc_cid=31f2dba74c&mc_eid=be749a38e6
One aspect of “unconditional surrender” is that the people in power get kicked out, and won’t sit back and figure how to resurrect their system at some later date. In general, a new oligarchy is created which will look back and try not to repeat the previous mistakes.
For Japan and Germany, they have learned that they could gain by trade/commerce what they could not gain by war. By and large, the Chinese have learned this, while our government has forgotten.
Admin, thanks for reminding me.
I’m thinking of beating you up in NYC. No nuclear exchange … just a small skirmish …. two hits … me hitting you, you hitting the floor.
However, I can be placated by a large order of fries.
I’ll have Avalon there to protect me. I’ll bring the fries.
If you fight a war you fight to win.
We did that in WWII. We won and the entire world prospered for decades afterward as a result.
We haven’t done it since and what has it gotten us?
Maybe the Japs shouldn’t have attacked us without warning in the first place, their actions are what led to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t attacked us.
You initiate an action, you are the one responsible for its results.
Another outstanding essay on the subject.
“Thank God for the Atom Bomb”
The New Republic
–
August 1981
by Paul Fussell
Many years ago in New York I saw on the side of a bus a whiskey ad I’ve
remembered all this time. It’s been for me a model of the short poem, and
indeed I’ve come upon few short poems subsequently that exhibited more
poetic talent. The ad consisted of two eleven-syllable lines of “verse,” thus:
In life, experience is the great teacher.
In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.
For present purposes we must jettison the second line (licking our lips, to be
sure, as it disappears), leaving the first to register a principle whose banality
suggests that it enshrines a most useful truth. I bring up the matter because,
writing on the forty-second anniversary of the atom-bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, I want to consider something suggested by the long debate
about the ethics, if any, of that ghastly affair. Namely, the importance of
experience, sheer, vulgar experience, in influencing, if not determining, one’s
views about that use of the atom bomb.
The experience I’m talking about is having to come to grips, face to face,
with an enemy who designs your death. The experience is common to those
in the marines and the infantry and even the line navy, to those, in short,
who fought the Second World War mindful always that their mission was, as
they were repeatedly assured, “to close with the enemy and destroy him.”
Destroy
, notice: not hurt, frighten, drive away, or capture. I think there’s
something to be learned about that war, as well as about the tendency of
historical memory unwittingly to resolve ambiguity and generally clean up
the premises, by considering the way testimonies emanating from real war
experience tend to complicate attitudes about the most cruel ending of that
most cruel war.
Link for the rest of the article it is a very good read.
http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/hf/iakh/HIS1300MET/v12/undervisningsmateriale/Fussel%20-%20thank%20god%20for%20the%20atom%20bomb.pdf
Bob.
Japan was begging to surrender, however they wanted a conditional surrender. Their condition was that they wanted to retain their emperor. The U.S. said no and dropped its bombs. Japan then agreed to an unconditional surrender. The U.S. then let them keep their emperor anyway.
The main reason they were dropped was to demonstrate supreme superpower status to the rest of the world, especially the USSR. By 1945, all the allies cared about was the post-war world: who got what, securing the best German and Japanese scientists, overseas military bases, testing new weapons, and rocketry and the conquest of space.
History is written by the victors and that’s why so many Americans are clueless on the subject. Government funded history of WWII begins with Pearl Harbor in the East and D-Day in the West. Few know about the oil embargo, lend lease program and other reasons why the leaders had already fixated themselves on war years earlier.
My Dad fought all through WWII and never had any doubts about the use of the bomb. I guess it is easy to second guess Truman if your butt was never in harm´s way. The whole war was an atrocity. Let´s leave it at that.
The US army air force bombed the shit out of Japan until they ran out of incendiary bombs . Hundredsof thousands dead and the son of bitches still would not surrender .They were defeated but still would not give up.Truman made the right decision and saved hundreds of thousands of young men from dying. The Japanese had 2.5 million soldiers on the main island dug in and ready to fight to the death. What do these fucking Monday morning quarterbacks think would have happened?
Stucky is right .Truman was right .The army air force commander was right. To all I say good JOB.
Let’s not forget the butchering japs as the raped and Plunder their way across the Pacific. This was the reason for the oil embargo.The Japanese started the war in 1937 while destroying parts of China. You don’t get to choose how you will surrender after you start a world war .Don’t forget the 2500 sailors killed at Pearl Harbor.
So I guess we can just obliterate the concept of “war crime”? Suppose Japan had had NO soldiers, and the Marines had just waded ashore and killed every man, woman and child in those two cities with machine guns and hand grenades, that would have been hunky-dory? Because the fact is Japan had no defense against the a-bombs, and we knew it.
Anarcho,
If you have to use ridiculous “what if” scenarios to make your point, you don’t have a point worth making.
I’ll discuss Negotiations.
1. Clinton and N. Korea on the nuclear issue – N. Korea got boatloads of money and oil as a bribe to accept a nuclear non-proliferation agreement. After the deal was completer, the N. Korean officials were rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably at the stupidity of the West.
2. Obama and Iran, same issue – being played out.
3. Japan and U.S. negotiating over U.S. sanctions. They couldn’t come to an agreement.
There is always an alternative to war, unless it is someone like Hitler.
The alternatives (plural) include negotiations. There are other alternatives. Both should be pursued until the cows come home. You also need good negotiators.
I fully support negotiated settlements as long as the deal is structured to ENSURE compliance.
Lostcause,
It is much more complicated than that. You would do well to read some of William Manchester’s books on WWII, well written and brilliant insight. Southern Sage hit the nail on the head, the average Joe doing the heavy lifting of actually fighting and dieing in the war was both relieved jubilant that they would be returning to see their families after seeing so many of their fellow soldiers killed. Take a quick read of my above post it is only 14 pages, but with numerous references and quotes from people who lived through this time, not just some starry eyed philosopher who wishes we could have done a “better” and “more “humane” war. There are no half measures in war if you choice is to win, unfortunately.
Bob.
“your” not “you”
First rule of war: If you are in it win it. The alternative sucks worse.
It was ‘time to fry’
You’re in a war to win it. You notice we didn’t need to give the Jap’s any concessions. They didn’t fuck with anyone else or our allies. They wanted a war – they got a war. I believe the Jap’s realized they asked for it.
Dresden was maybe worse.
“…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
Dwight Eisenhower
“My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
Adm. William Leahy
“…when we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.”
Gen. Carter Clark (in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables – the MAGIC summaries – for Truman and his advisors)
I am not disputing (here) whether it’s legitimate to kill people in war. The question is who gets targeted – soldiers or civilians. Japan was already defeated. We had won.
AP,
They had already started a full blown campaign of targeting civilians, Tokyo was not the first city to be immolated. Also citizens often fought side by side with the soldiers preferring to die rather than be captured. At the time the were about 7000 Allied casualties a week and only a few weeks earlier 123,000 Japanese and Americans died on Okinawa, if we had been able to use the bomb a month or two earlier, just think of the lives saved if we had been. War proposes a full menu of vexing questions, on this one I tend to side with the guys who were doing the real fighting.
Bob.
William Manchester:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/14/magazine/the-bloodiest-battle-of-all.html
Well, whatever happened don’t blame me. I wasn’t there. I’m not even sure I’ll take blame for all the bs going on right now since ‘my government’ doesn’t do hardly anything I want it to, and a lot of crap I don’t want it to, without so much as even asking for my opinion.
I’m sure I’d have wanted the bombs dropped if I was serving in the military and facing a landing. No one wants to be the last soldier killed during a war. The Japanese were a fanatical enemy.
Thanks for the link Bostonbob. Sobering read.
“Hiroshima and Nagasaki: five reasons why President Truman made the right decision:” ————article submitted by Boston Bob
That website is populated by authors who love the military and things that go “Boom!”. I used their search capability and typed in “anti-war”. There are no anti-war articles. No articles about America’s warmongering. No articles about the immorality of war. Lots of stories, though, about glorious battles. No surprise that they love the A-bomb.
Their 5 reasons are idiotic … which is the natural expectation of lovers of war.
1) Imperial Japan was fanatical and barbarous in the absolute extreme.
So what!! So was Hitler and Stalin. So are many of dozens of countries today. Why aren’t we nuking them? This is an excuse to open the NukeBomb can of worms?? Soooo, the solution to a “barbarous” nation is to be even more barbarous? Pure fuckin’ insanity.
2) Imperial Japan was utterly averse to surrender and had a fatal contempt for those who weren’t.
Bull-fucking-shit. Stop painting them as some kind of SUPERMEN who would have fought to the death to the very last civilian. No one does that (except crazy Joos in Masada). Everyone has a breaking point, when enough is enough. They DID surrender after we nuked two cities. So, they may have been “utterly averse” to it in principle …. but, capable of it IN FACT.
3) Operation Downfall, the proposed invasion of Japan, would have resulted in more casualties on both sides.
Complete and utter bullshit. So fucking sick and tired of those with Big Crystal Balls prognosticating about what MIGHT have happened. The fact that they estimate potential casualties anywhere from thousands to MILLIONS just proves they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Well, MAYBE “Operation Downfall” was an ill-conceived plan that could have resulted in massive casualties. Use some imagination …. come up with a DIFFERENT plan. The country and its industry and military was pretty much decimated, the populace disheartened and defeated …. a fuckin’ blockade around the island country would have forced them to either a) starve to death or, b) surrender. Who gives a shit how long it would have taken … as long as their ability to wage war against others was curtailed?
4) It stymied Soviet influence and the creation of another North Korea.
The Soviets had no A-bombs at the time we nuked Japan. They got their first nuke in 1949. Now they have just as many as the USA. Great job doing the “stymied” thing. Assholes.
5) The destructive precedent it set wasn’t quite as epochal as many believe – conventional fire-bombings were similarly devastating.
In some ways fire-bombings were worse. Great fucking logic, isn’t it? Since we fucked up more civilians via fire-bombing, therefore nuking civilians is perfectly OK. This is reasoning that even Satan would be embarrassed with giving.
The entire article is war-mongering war-loving war-glorification BULLSHIT!!!
Boston….same here, thanx for the link.
From the link:
“It does not seem too much to ask that they be remembered on one day each year. After all, they sacrificed their futures that you might have yours.”
From something I read in the past – a marker on an Allied grave site in Algeria:
“As you go this way, think of us and say – we gave our today for your tomorrow.”
Just to be clear …
I do NOT care much for modern day Japan, and even less for the Japs in the 1900s – 1945.
There are two big reasons why I hate that the USA dropped nukes:
1) It killed mostly civilians. Some of you apparently have no problem with that. “War is hell, and everyone is fair game” is your attitude. I don’t understand that. I don’t want to understand it. I don’t like you people, not one bit.
2) It LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG. It set a precedent … it’s OK to nuke cities. Why do some of you morons think that’s OK??
You folks who bang this drum — “The purpose of war is to destroy things and kill people” — and then extrapolate that to just about endorse ANY ATROCITY (such as nuking civilians) …. well, I hope you fuckers are consistent when the next war happens if the enemy also has nukes.
Let’s say Russia and the USA go to war — who starts it and over what is irrelevant — the point is, we are at war with a nuke power. You fuckers should be PERFECTLY OK if Russia nukes 10 of our largest cities. After all, “war is hell”, and they are only doing what YOU approve of in the USA having nuked Japan. I’ll bet you nuke-loving-assholes will disagree though. It’s different when YOU are the one being nuked … cuz you all are such special fucking snowflakes, right?
Lastly …. you wanna know what is UTTERLY DISGUSTING? It’s that my sarcastic post of wishing that 200,000 Japs would have been firebombed got 3 up votes. Some of you have serious fucking mental problems.
Don’t forget America’s great “victory” in SE Asia. Nixon’s “peace with honor”!
Where he had to “bomb them to the table”! Some honor?
FACT: More bomb tonnage was dropped by the US in SE Asia than in all of World War II .
Yet some some skinny, short, Asian man dressed in black pj’s and carrying an AK47 with a bag of rice and a fish head, made the world’s most powerful, awesome filled, rah,rah,rah, nation on earth, high tail it out of there! “Peace with honor”? What was honorable about the whole Vietnam mess?
Stucky….an earlier commenter mentioned this and I believe it is the crux behind the right or wrong.
If a country goes to war, that country’s leaders must fight to win that war, by any means. I will tell you that you have to be as vicious and determined as the enemy or you will lose the war. I.E., don’t go to war if you do not employ the savagery required to win the war. Stalin is a great example.
And wars suck, especially for the civilians – the innocents.
BTW…I did not give you a thumbs up on your 200,000 post cuz I knew it was BS (from earlier articles).
@Anarcho, thank you for posting those quotes and @Stucky, thank you for researching the posted site as I have no need to go and be fed more “we won” war bullshit, got enough of that in school.
Reality is we starved them INTO the war, then were no better than Mao or Hitler when we dropped bombs on them.
Oh wait, some souls are worth more than others, and some souls are allowed to murder God’s creations because those same souls have convinced their own selves of their own greatness.
Anyone else know what was so special about Nagasaki that leads me to believe the choice of their bomb/demise had to do with something other than what we were told?
Probably not.
Anyway, we all will pay for both the sins we commit, and the sins we condone/support. Murdering a defeated, encamped country full of babies and old men was sinful, and used to prove that the USA! has the rights to dominion over ALL of the inhabitants of work.
Our reversion to mean/history is going to be freaking epic. Too bad my poor daughter will have to pay the exact same price as the offspring of the likes of the war mongering Clintons, Bushies, Pelosis, Obamas, Cheneys or Dimons.
They get all the earth’s goodies, but in the end even those of us that didn’t get the good stuff will owe the debt.
We have a freaking huge debt and it grows by the day.
Nicely done Stuck, thanks for the comment!
Lotta posters here seem to regret our winning of WWII.
I imagine they would prefer a world where we didn’t.
The fact is, because Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs, they haven’t been used since. The effects of an atomic blast and its after effects were on open display and carefully measured. It was plain this was not just 13,000 tons or 20,000 tons of chemical explosive equivalent. It was an entirely different sort of energy against which there was no defense or shelter that could reasonably be constructed.
As I mentioned the other day on this topic, had the atomic bomb not been used until the ‘next war’ there would not have been just two of them available. There would have been hundreds or, as was soon the case, thousands available. Without the example and memory of Hiroshima or Nagasaki its almost certain one side or the other would have initiated an atomic exchange.
Some say a test or demonstration would have served the same purpose but I doubt it. There is a big difference between observing a nuclear blast from 10 miles away in a bunker with welders glasses on and seeing the real deal up close. Armies have live fire exercises all the time to get soldiers used to the sights and sounds of combat but its not the same as coming under actual fire. The US and USSR conducted hundreds of open air atomic tests but they were always in remote areas and only had simulated towns, ships or structures to measure the effects. Billy Mitchell demonstrating he could sink a battleship with some primitive airplanes dropping gravity bombs did not stop any Navy from building and using battleships. It took the example of Taranto and Pearl Harbor and the loss of thousands of men aboard operational battleships for the reality to sink in.
Kill lots of people and destroy the enemy’s will to fight anymore. How many years have we been in Afghanistan? Either fight to win or don’t fight at all. I also believe that wars need to be declared and if a war is needed so badly,A draft should go into effect so everyone has a stake in winning the war.This would keep us from fighting these phony wars for energy companies.
“If a country goes to war, that country’s leaders must fight to win that war, BY ANY MEANS.”
—— kokoda (emphasis, mine)
“By any means” is simply not true. Civilized people have a “code” for what IS … and IS NOT acceptable in warfare … documented in the Geneva Convention. Of course, not all combatant countries will follow it. Nevertheless, at least in principle, there are limits what warriors may do.
Again, you better hope we NEVER get into a war with a nuclear capable enemy. Because you must logically agree that “by any means” also applies to the enemy. In which case, kiss this world goodbye … which is more than likely humanity’s fate anyway.
Teresa
There are two certainties I rely upon in this universe.
1. The sun will rise in the morning.
2. You will provide a most reasonable commentary.
And, I’m not 100% positive about #1.
“Lotta posters here seem to regret our winning of WWII.” ——— Anonymous
Bullshit.
You’re a fucking retarded moron. And a dipshit “Anon” coward as well. Go suck a diseased donkey dick, ya faggot.
@Unit472, I respect you as a commentator, but I can’t accept the utilitarian logic you’re advancing. Kill a thousand people, much less 200,000, as a salutary lesson on the effects of nuclear weapons? Nope, just couldn’t do it.
Stucky,
your character shines forth like a beacon on a moonless night.
What da fuck was THAT?!?
Emperor Hirohito, August 6th, 1945
What? Too soon?
Anarcho Pagan, Hiroshima wasn’t a ‘demonstration’ or ‘lesson’. There had only been a singly atomic explosion on July 15th and it was out in the New Mexico desert. They scientists and engineers knew it worked but what its effects on a city ( or nation) would be was still unknown on August 6th. They knew, if worked, it would be an order of magnitude greater than a conventional bombing raid by B-29’s but the on the ground effects against a populated city was uncertain.
In the event is surpassed everyone’s expectations. Do you know there are only six photographs in existence of that day all taken by the same photographer? Cameras and film might not have been as ubiquitous amongst the Japanese as they later became but they had Kodak Brownies or their equivalent back then in Japan and in a city the size of Hiroshima probably thousands of them. Why no photographs after something as epochal as the atomic bombing? They didn’t even begin to clean up until a week later. That’s how profound the shock of that explosion was. There was even doubt the US, if it caused it, could do it again which is one reason it took two before the Japanese really understood what was happening.
unit472, you’re looking at the event retrospectively, you might be glad that it happened, especially since you personally bear no responsibility for it. Try looking at it prospectively, from the point of view of Truman: would you have done the same thing? It doesn’t take a physicist to extrapolate the effects of the release of that much thermal energy, never mind radiation, on a city.
As I have mentioned previously, I knew a few survivors of the Bataan Death March. I remember one in particular who had lost an arm on the march due to the atrocities committed by the Japanese. I met him when quite young, as he was a friend of the family, and I remember being afraid of him as a result of having lost his arm – he looked different.
Over the years, I knew him more and more. And I can remember asking about his arm. And I can tell you that he hated the Japanese with a pure and burning hatred. He saw them kill perhaps thousands and thousands of defenseless prisoners and civilians.
He certainly could have cared less if they had been bomber back to the stone age.
But of all the things that he told me, the one thing that seemed to piss him off most was that American soldiers had their hands wired behind them and then were shot in the head.
He wanted no quarter given to the Japanese, and would have been happy to have seen them wiped from the face of the earth.
I believe he and those like him who experienced such horrors had the right to their vengeance. And I think the leaders of the country had some obligation to provide it for them. And it seems that they did in the end.
Any people that wages war in the manner that the Japanese did do not get my pity for what befalls them.
“Any people that wages war in the manner that the Japanese did do not get my pity for what befalls them.” —-Llpoh
When your enemy does bad shit ….. and you retaliate with the same bad shit, or worse bad shit …. then you become THEM.
batan death march, great treatment there. i suppose we could have done the humane thing, blockaded, and starved them out or passed the buck to the russies, japan was a huge okinawa with able assistance from women and children. the emperor had to call it off. nice to leave for japan after eating dirt in germany. moral rather low for many, this country was done with war, ready to end it all. let’s not forget warned at potsdam, again prior to first and prior to second, still many wished to continue on. suppose it would be ok if tables turned or nanking never happened. the chinese remember that all to well. blame to a large extent falls on FDR, he wanted in, pearl in my readings was made all to easy, gulf of tonkin, 911, same shit over again.
Stuck – being from a somewhat tribal background, I personally tend to subscribe to this way of looking at things in many if not most instances:
“The worst of mine is better than the best of yours”.
I would do anything – anything – to an attacking enemy to keep it from killing one of my family. All bets are off. And I would not lose a minute’s sleep over what befalls such.
And I suspect you would do the same.
According to the Japanese, FDR’s oil embargo led to the attack on Pearl Harbor and on the Philippines. To me, the obvious question is that given the Japanese atrocities extant since 1937, why should he not have called for the embargo? It was a non-violent way to reduce the Japanese war machine.
I was a high school junior in Manila in 1949. I met many people who had suffered under the Japanese occupation. That included cousins who had been interned, as well as classmates. I saw the wreckage that was Corregidor and the remaining damage to Manila.
I gayrawndamntee you that the Japanese made themselves the most hated group in all of Asia. There was great rejoicing by tens of millions of people that the A-bombs were used.
To me, in 1945, it meant that my step-father did not have to return to the PTO and that my father did not get transferred to it from Germany. D-Day was damned well enough for him.
You go out murdering and torturing people who weren’t bothering you? Shame on your sorry ass for whatever blowback happens.
I was in Times Square on VJ night. Damned fine party. Well earned.
“I gayrawndamntee you that the Japanese made themselves the most hated group in all of Asia.” ——Desertrat
Today, the honor of “most hated group” belongs to Amerika …. just substitute “world” for “Asia”.
“There was great rejoicing by tens of millions of people that the A-bombs were used.” ——Desertrat
As will hundreds of millions rejoice at the smoldering corpse of this once honorable nation.
Llpoh, at least I know it wasn’t people like me that murdered most of your ancestors.
Desertrat, sounds like you are at least partly Philippino. Weren’t you taught the history of the US occupation?
Tribalism didn’t work out so well against an enemy that was more numerous, more technologically advanced, and just as tribal.
Some of the greatest crimes committed by the Japanese Army leadership consisted of sending thousands of soldiers to remote places such as New Guinea, Burma and the Philippines with few supplies other than orders to live off the land; places that could barely support the indigenous populations. At best it turned the natives against them as they foraged for food. At worst it resorted to cannibalism.
I love the hand wringing over nuking Japan. These are the same guys who did the Rape of Nanking. Same guys who launched incendiary balloons at us in the hopes of setting our West Coast on fire. Same guys who were torturing and starving our prisoners. Same guys who were experimenting with Chem/Bio.
They would have done it to us if they could. And they tried. I was just watching a documentary the other day about a German sub carrying their A-bomb project to Japan to continue their research after Germany’s days were numbered. I don’t feel too guilty about our victory against a fanatical, relentless, enemy.
I got to meet Mr. Leon Smith, who was a weaponeer for the atomic bomb and missed out on dropping the 2 bombs in a coin toss. He dropped Bikini atoll. He prepped the special plane loading spot on Saipan prior to the bombings. He told us he could see the ships being collected for the November 45 landings and he sat in on the planning sessions where it was estimated we would lose 1000 troops per hour in the assault.
He said when they finally dropped the bombs, he was relieved because everyone would finally be able to go home.
My dad was 15 when the bomb dropped and he thought he would grow up and have to go fight the Japanese, too.
When I mentioned my dad to him, all he had to say to me was, “He wouldda been dead!”
After the war, I’ve read they found caves filled with enough weapons to arm every man, woman, and child in the islands and last-ditch aircraft. They were on the ropes, but still capable of fighting for their land. They had no intention of being occupied.
Stucky-the targets were not just innocent civilians.
The targets of the atomic bombs are often overlooked- Both cities were strategic targets. Hiroshima was a major military base, housing 40K troops and the command for all forces in Southern Japan. Nagasaki was a major port and industrial city. Legit targets all the way around. I once read when we hit Hiro, we vaporized a division in parade formation. Fine by me. The only thing I might have done different, would have been to drop the first bomb on Tokyo to cut the head off the chicken. We might not have needed a 2nd one if we took out their entire government and their Holy Emporer in one fell swoop.
BTW-you said they could have been broken, that they weren’t that fanatical. If the Japanese weren’t that fanatical, why were we still finding them fighting the war on isolated islands for 40 years AFTER the war was over? They were popping up all over the Pacific on islands, long after it was over, STILL resisting decades after the war was over. Fanatical, No? Hell, even their civilians killed themselves rather than surrender.
Also, since Racism is antimatter these days, what about the Japanese sense of racial superiority, which was justification for alot of that shit to begin with? They were RAYCISS, so it’s OK anyhow.
Finally, I’m going to say something really, really offensive, but worth pointing out for discussion. Let’s say you’re in a total war for survival, not some BS limited political war, like everything since then, but a real total war for survival. Like that war. The big secret in war is that supply and logistics are the real winner, not the troops. The ability to out-produce and supply your troops is much more important. Which is why it is considered legitimate to bomb railroads, bridges, factories, fuel refineries, aircraft plants, etc. Civilian casualties are an unavoidable part of that, BUT those civilians are directly involved in war production for their country. Those civilians keep the troops in the field, so destroying their industries, and unfortunately, them, helps end the war sooner. In a total war, that seems legitimate. Amoral, maybe, but legitimate. If you accept the idea that destroying the enemy’s supplies and manufacturing is reasonable in war, especially a total war, then it’s hard to fault us for destroying Nagasaki, which was a massive industrial city and a major seaport. It was a legit industrial target. Hiroshima was a legitimate military target, since it was the home of the Japanese Southern Command and housed 40K troops. I once read we vaporized a division on a parade field with the bomb. That does not seem unreasonable to me.
I think it’s funny this discussion comes up so much now that the folks who actually lived through it are gone or on their way out. I’m sure if more of them were around to tell us about it, opinions might be different.
“Civilian casualties are an unavoidable part of that, BUT those civilians are directly involved in war production for their country. Those civilians keep the troops in the field, so destroying their industries, and unfortunately, them, helps end the war sooner. In a total war, that seems legitimate. Amoral, maybe, but legitimate.” ————– gilberts
Legitimate targets ….. even if those civilians HAD NO CHOICE in their “role”? Meaning, of course, they were part of a brutal dictatorship, a small cabal of assholes who ruled the country. What about children … are they legitimate targets also? After all, one day they’ll grow into adults, some who will become soldiers, and the rest supporting those soldiers … might as well kill them now.
And, what about YOU (and, me)? If out beloved leaders decide we can win launch a first strike against Russia, and win .. but, if we don’t, isn’t every single American a legitimate target? You know, since we have a trillion dollar military budget, that pretty much require the labor of all Americans, either directly or indirectly. I’m antiwar, Quinn is antiwar, Teresa is antiwar, you are antiwar … most of us here are antiwar …. yet, our leaders itch for war, and suddenly we are all legitimate targets. That’s can’t be justifiable.
I understand the point you, and others, make about the depravity and brutality of the Jap soldiers. Totally understand. As I said before, I have no love for the fuckers.
But, here is my final point … my great fear …. WE HUMANS CAN JUSTIFY ANYTHING. ANYTHING!!!
The nukes in military arsenals today make the Hiroshima-Nagasaki nukes look like FIRECRACKERS. When they are unleashed it can damn well mean the end of humanity. Literally. Maybe a few souls will survive … and they’ll tell each other; “well, those fuckers deserved it!”. Isn’t that the tragedy of the human race? Even Adam and Eve justified their sin which lead to humanity being cursed. God help us all.
Stucky- +100
Thank you, well some of you, for reminding me that there are others that can see truth and reality through their propaganda and fear. Thank you.
Stucky says, “…As will hundreds of millions rejoice at the smoldering corpse of this once honorable nation…”
I think you underestimate, there will be BILLIONS of people rejoicing. Ever since our “victory” in WWII (which come ON you warmongers, you KNOW Russia won the war), we have been out spreading death by means of wars and for-profit lies ever since.
Yes Japan committed “atrocities” that was part and parcel of their culture. The fact that so many here (get the feeling we could have found the exact same arguments in Rome circa 500bc-300ad too) completely ignore OUR atrocities as “necessities,” and that we can’t see how similar they actually are, is telling to man’s ability to reason himself into insanity.
Open your eyes and take a step back. See our country as the people in the countries we drone, burn and bomb see us.
We are the evil we allegedly dropped a nuclear bomb to eradicate.
And, someday, maybe not in my lifetime (but is looking more likely by the second), all the lies, death and shit is going to make its way home to us.
Most will say that it’s God’s revenge for something stupid like homosexuality or abortions, at least I will know the truth.
Satan isn’t man’s greatest enemy, man is.
When my bible-thumping, full of hatred, family and inlaws get hard-ons for the death and torture we export it always makes me wonder….
Will God be so happy that because we THOUGHT we were special snowflakes (thanks Stuck) that he allows us passage into His Kingdom with hatred, fear and blood on our hands and hearts?
I think not. Much to atone for. At least I know if one atones here, feels the suffering of our hubris here, one will have much less to account for there.
That is my goal anyway. Peace all.