67 Years

[Unkotare]

50,000 mark 67th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion


Always a somber and reflective anniversary.

 

[there4eyeM]

Great moral responsibility in being the first to use 'the bomb'.

 

[gipper]

The a-bombings were immoral and necessary. It is never right to wantonly murder civilians. And particularly of a nation that wanted to surrender. Japan has been seeking surrender terms for months. The idiot progressive Truman and the fascist FDR demanded unconditional surrender leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths by both sides.

Japan was done by July '45. They were incapable of continuing the war. Their navy and air force were gone. We have complete control of air and sea.

The bombing was NOT about winning the war. It was about showing the world our power and it was hoped, scare Stalin (how the hell did we align ourselves with histories greatest tyrant and murderer???), which of course, failed.

Immoral and unnecessary.

 

[whitehall]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

 

[gipper]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

I think we need to realize that war is a way for the state to gain more power. Progressives like Wilson and FDR were all about power. Both did all they could to get an isolationist nation into war including many unconstitutional things. Allowing politicians to take us to war almost always leads to big problems...see Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War....Lincoln may have been the worst of all as he prosecuted a war against Americans.

War is the tool of the tyrant.

I see a typo in my earlier post. It should read: The a-bombings were immoral and unnecessary.

 

[whitehall]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

I think we need to realize that war is a way for the state to gain more power. Progressives like Wilson and FDR were all about power. Both did all they could to get an isolationist nation into war including many unconstitutional things. Allowing politicians to take us to war almost always leads to big problems...see Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War....Lincoln may have been the worst of all as he prosecuted a war against Americans.

War is the tool of the tyrant.

I see a typo in my earlier post. It should read: The a-bombings were immoral and unnecessary.

You miss the point deadhead. War is a way of protecting a Nation from it's enemies. Japan was a cruel nation that enslaved most of Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The problem was that America had such inept leadership that both Japan and Nazi Germany thrived during FDR's first three terms. The US had virtually no intelligence network or coherent foreign policy and the dirty little secret is that FDR may have underestimated Japan's military might to such an extent that the administration actually invited a Japanese attack to get into the "real war" in Europe.

 

[gipper]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

I think we need to realize that war is a way for the state to gain more power. Progressives like Wilson and FDR were all about power. Both did all they could to get an isolationist nation into war including many unconstitutional things. Allowing politicians to take us to war almost always leads to big problems...see Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War....Lincoln may have been the worst of all as he prosecuted a war against Americans.

War is the tool of the tyrant.

I see a typo in my earlier post. It should read: The a-bombings were immoral and unnecessary.

You miss the point deadhead. War is a way of protecting a Nation from it's enemies. Japan was a cruel nation that enslaved most of Southeast Asia and the Philippines. The problem was that America had such inept leadership that both Japan and Nazi Germany thrived during FDR's first three terms. The US had virtually no intelligence network or coherent foreign policy and the dirty little secret is that FDR may have underestimated Japan's military might to such an extent that the administration actually invited a Japanese attack to get into the "real war" in Europe.

I am afraid you miss the point. The debate was about whether the a-bombings were necessary. I have stated why I think they were not. You have cited things entirely unrelated.

 

[martybegan]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

In actual effect the atom bombs produced devistation no different from the bombing of other cities during WWII, except it only took one bomb per city. The fire bombing of tokyo was far more destructive, but isnt given as much attention as it took hundreds of bombers to create the same effect.

We gave Japan the same conditions we gave Germany. Germany capitulated, Japan did not. While Japan was near defeat, thier millitary leadership was determined to go down fighting, and stuck to the concept that if they caused enough casualties on the invasion beaches, they could get away with negotiated terms. They also wanted to maintain thier army, have no occupation, try thier own war criminals, and handle thier own disarmament, above and beyond thier requirement for immunity for the emperor.

If Japan didnt surrender, the options were blockade, further coventional air bombing, and invasion. Blockade would result in millions of starvation deaths, conventional air bombing millions of civilian casualties, and invasion millions of casulaties on both sides. With invasion we might have also needed help from the Soviets, and guess what they would have asked for. Imagine a cold war with a "North and South" Japan.

 

[Artevelde]

The a-bombings were immoral and necessary. It is never right to wantonly murder civilians. And particularly of a nation that wanted to surrender. Japan has been seeking surrender terms for months. The idiot progressive Truman and the fascist FDR demanded unconditional surrender leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths by both sides.

Japan was done by July '45. They were incapable of continuing the war. Their navy and air force were gone. We have complete control of air and sea.

The bombing was NOT about winning the war. It was about showing the world our power and it was hoped, scare Stalin (how the hell did we align ourselves with histories greatest tyrant and murderer???), which of course, failed.

Immoral and unnecessary.

This is stupid and false. Japan was not ready to surrender.

The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.

 

[Unkotare]

When people need to insist that the question is simple, it is very telling.

 

[gipper]

The a-bombings were immoral and necessary. It is never right to wantonly murder civilians. And particularly of a nation that wanted to surrender. Japan has been seeking surrender terms for months. The idiot progressive Truman and the fascist FDR demanded unconditional surrender leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths by both sides.

Japan was done by July '45. They were incapable of continuing the war. Their navy and air force were gone. We have complete control of air and sea.

The bombing was NOT about winning the war. It was about showing the world our power and it was hoped, scare Stalin (how the hell did we align ourselves with histories greatest tyrant and murderer???), which of course, failed.

Immoral and unnecessary.

This is stupid and false. Japan was not ready to surrender.

The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.

Wrong. Get a good history book on the event and learn something.

Many in our military much more familiar with the event then you...including Eisenhower, Macarthur, Dulles, etc said it was unnecessary. I will believe them over the statist Truman and the progressives who supported him.

 

[Artevelde]

The a-bombings were immoral and necessary. It is never right to wantonly murder civilians. And particularly of a nation that wanted to surrender. Japan has been seeking surrender terms for months. The idiot progressive Truman and the fascist FDR demanded unconditional surrender leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths by both sides.

Japan was done by July '45. They were incapable of continuing the war. Their navy and air force were gone. We have complete control of air and sea.

The bombing was NOT about winning the war. It was about showing the world our power and it was hoped, scare Stalin (how the hell did we align ourselves with histories greatest tyrant and murderer???), which of course, failed.

Immoral and unnecessary.

This is stupid and false. Japan was not ready to surrender.

The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.

Wrong. Get a good history book on the event and learn something.

Many in our military much more familiar with the event then you...including Eisenhower, Macarthur, Dulles, etc said it was unnecessary. I will believe them over the statist Truman and the progressives who supported him.

I have read many history books on this subject. You are completely wrong.

 

[Two Thumbs]

50,000 mark 67th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion


Always a somber and reflective anniversary.

Somber? Why be be somber? It should be a great celebration.

If it wasn't for the bombings, Japan would be a US state, and any talk of the Japanese would be in the past tense, since they would all be dead, except for those living in the states.

 

[Two Thumbs]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

How is saving millions of lives a mistake?

 

[Unkotare]

50,000 mark 67th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion


Always a somber and reflective anniversary.

Somber? Why be be somber? It should be a great celebration.

If it wasn't for the bombings, Japan would be a US state, and any talk of the Japanese would be in the past tense, since they would all be dead, except for those living in the states.

Don't be ridiculous (and grossly immoral).

 

[gipper]

This is stupid and false. Japan was not ready to surrender.

The use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless lives.

Wrong. Get a good history book on the event and learn something.

Many in our military much more familiar with the event then you...including Eisenhower, Macarthur, Dulles, etc said it was unnecessary. I will believe them over the statist Truman and the progressives who supported him.

I have read many history books on this subject. You are completely wrong.

Can you please provide proof to back your statement?

 

[gipper]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

How is saving millions of lives a mistake?

Dropping A-bombs SAVED lives. That is a complete myth. Truman and his follow progressives promoted the lie that 500k American soldiers and untold numbers of Japanese would die if we had invaded the mainland...sadly many Americans believe this lie. They promoted this lie after receiving much criticism for incinerating women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, the US Army predicted 46k American casualties prior to the bombings.

Read the following if you want truth about the a-bombs...the bombings were all about state power and it was hoped, would impress the stinking Soviets and the murdering scumbag Stalin (who we allied with!!!!...CRAZY) and the rest of the world that America's power was unstoppable.

Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: Learn Austrian Economics
In time for the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the leftist National Catholic Reporter treats us to an entirely conventional rendition and defense of that awful episode in U.S. history, a rendition I might have expected to read in the neoconservative Weekly Standard. (Thanks to Laurence Vance for the link.) My comment, which is “awaiting moderation,” ran as follows:
I am shocked that this kind of jingoism and raw collectivism would soil the pages (so to speak) of the NCR. I would expect this in the Weekly Standard. The use of formulations like “Japan started the war” helps to evade all the relevant moral questions; if “Japan” started it, can “Japan” be laid waste? Their political class makes an idiotic and suicidal military move, so every single three-year-old in the country becomes subject to bombing, poisoning, being burned or buried alive, etc.? At what point do we start questioning the logic of this, instead of formulating all our arguments as if this were simply an obvious moral given?
Instead of asking these hard questions, the kind of questions we are trained from early childhood not to ask, indeed not even to be intellectually equipped to formulate, NCR gives us a collectivist propaganda piece. Anyone who criticizes the decision to drop the bomb is trying to “defame our country” (again, in classic neocon style, conflating the decisions of a small circle of officials with “our country&#8221.
I guess the editor of the Paulist Catholic World was trying to “defame our country”? Or how about L’Osservatore Romano, which also criticized the bombings? Or the great Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe? Or even Pat Buchanan, who denounces the bombings as acts of barbarism?
Oh, but “we” had to burn all those kids alive, comes the reply. Why, that’s all the fanatics in Japan would understand! (What if the author had said the police needed to kick in the heads of certain races of people because that’s all they would understand? Would you thoughtlessly nod your head at that?) Completely left out of the discussion are the genuine alternatives that existed to dropping the bomb, alternatives that could have worked even with the incorrigible Japanese. (Of course, whenever someone mentions “alternatives” to a decision made by the U.S. military, he is instantly derided as some kind of leftist dreamer.)
For what these alternatives were, and for something a little more significant than mindless, knee-jerk cheering of the U.S. military, as if this group of government employees were sacrosanct, I recommend this short piece by historian Ralph Raico.
Reprinted with permission from TomWoods.com.
Left-Liberal Catholics: Yay for the Atomic Bombings! | Tom Woods

Was the Atomic Bomb Necessary to End World War II?

The first use of an atomic bomb in warfare took place on August 6, 1945. The weapon was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the U.S. bomber Enola Gay, instantaneously destroying four square miles in the middle of the population center. The blast killed 66,000 men, women, and children, and injured an additional 69,000. A full 67 percent of Hiroshima’s buildings, transportation systems, and urban structures were destroyed.
The next (and only other) atomic bomb to be dropped in warfare was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later. That blast killed 39,000 civilians and injured another 25,000; 40 percent of the city was destroyed or unrepairable. The Japanese government surrendered to the U.S. government on August 10, 1945.
Since the last “good war,” a debate has ensued over the moral legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons, particularly against civilians. The critics hold that it is a crime to incinerate civilians en masse; defenders commonly claim that the bombing was necessary to bring the war to a close, thereby saving countless American lives.
Most of those who make this claim do so in earnest. The problem is that this defense is both historically false, and taken to its logical conclusion, extremely dangerous.
But a discussion of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot proceed without an overview of the imperialist motives for Japanese military aggression, which reflected the age-old drive for power through military intimidation and conquest. The Japanese desired a series of conquests, to constitute the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere. This involved, most importantly, penetration into Korea, Manchuria, China, French Indochina, Malaya, and Burma.
What was clearly not their goal was a prolonged conflict with the United States or any of the other Allied Powers. After establishing their Asian imperium and a defensive perimeter, the Japanese expected to reach a negotiated peace.
It should be clear that the attack on the American military base at Pearl Harbor was not a part of the long-term planning of the Japanese government. Indeed, conservatives and isolationists have long held the view that the Roosevelt administration provoked the Japanese into their aggressive stance as a back door to war in Europe.
Consider the facts leading up to the attack: Roosevelt had made a commitment to Churchill that the United States would enter into the Asian conflict if the British were attacked; the United States was shipping munitions to both Russia and Great Britain; Roosevelt had placed an embargo on oil and metals against Japan; and in the most egregious example, had sent the “unofficial” Flying Tigers to attack the Japanese in China in 1941. All were violations of U.S. neutrality and acts of belligerency.
Vocal critics on the Old Right—such as John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes—held that the Roosevelt administration was aware of the attack in advance, both from decoded transmissions and intelligence reports. The weight of history has ironed out the appearance of radicalism from the latter contention. Whatever the truth of the Pearl Harbor affair, an extended war with the United States was not a desire of the Japanese.
Japanese Objectives
Apologists for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to consider the overall thrust of the Japanese objectives. These objectives do not square with the notion that Japan was intractably set into a policy of mortal combat with the Americans. Not that the Japanese were not willing to fight—they did so for four bloody and grueling years. Yet the oft-repeated claim that the Japanese were willing to sacrifice every last individual before ending the war is nonsense.
In reality, the Japanese were willing to end hostilities with the United States as quickly as they began. Startlingly neglected is the January 1945 offer of the Japanese government to surrender. As the eminent English jurist Frederick J.P. Veale pointed out in Advance to Barbarism,
“Belatedly it has been discovered that seven months before it [the atomic bomb] was dropped, in January 1945, President Roosevelt received via General MacArthur’s headquarters an offer by the Japanese Government to surrender on terms virtually identical to those accepted by the United States after the dropping of the bomb: In July 1945, as we know, Roosevelt’s successor, President Truman, discussed with Stalin at Bebelsburg the Japanese offer to surrender.”
Clearly, then, the bomb did not have to be dropped to save the lives of American soldiers. The war in the Pacific could have ended prior to the European conflict. One suspects that the conflagration’s extension beyond the confines of necessity had more to do with the politics of war than military strategy. The fact that consultation with Stalin played a key role in the decision tends to implicate both what historian William L. Neumann pointed to as “the historic ambitions of Russia in Asia” and “the expansionist element in Stalinist Communism.”
The Japanese offer to surrender came at a time when surrender made sense. Consider the strange apology for the bombing offered by the historian Robert R. Smith, the logic of which may escape even the most alert reader:
“Allied air, surface, and submarine operations had cut the home islands from all sources of raw materials. The effective and close blockade of the Allies established around the home islands would ultimately have made it impossible for the Japanese to supply their military and civilian components with even the bare essentials of life. An early surrender was inevitable, probably even without the impetus supplied by the atomic blasts. It was better for both the Allies and the Japanese the end came when it did.”
Even if the Japanese had showed no signs of surrender and had remained obstinate in belligerency, the notion that the most human carnage possible must be inflicted on the civilians of an enemy government to force a surrender and minimize the losses of one’s own troops is perverse. Consider the consequences of adopting a policy of total war. Logically, if you expect an enemy to pursue this strategy, you will do everything in your power to do the same before the enemy has the opportunity to annihilate you.
Critics of the bombing have made a strong moral case against the action. This is why the defenders of the bombing use strongly moralistic terms themselves. One of the results is possibly the most bizarre and obviously wrong.
Most veterans and defenders of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki claim that whatever the reasons for the bombing and its support, racism was not among them. This is simply not true. The U.S. War Department and related agencies that specialized in producing hate propaganda and lies developed specifically racialist attacks on the Japanese.
Propaganda films, shown to theaters across the country, whipped Americans into war hysteria with films attacking the Japanese with their “grinning yellow faces.” American movie audiences were encouraged to cheer as they watched images of the “upstart yellow dwarfs” meeting their timely ends. The government played on and encouraged prejudice and specifically racial animosity against the Japanese. To be fair, the Japanese held—and still hold—similar views of Americans, views not discouraged by their government.
The most revealing aspect of this latter point is not that racism was involved in drumming up the war spirit, but rather that the truth of the matter has been so thoroughly obscured.
Oddly enough, many apologists are conservatives, who should be the first to recognize that the essence of government is its monopoly on violence. This is a paramount consideration in their analysis of the role of the government in domestic affairs. Consistency demands that conservatives begin to apply their principles across the board—to foreign policy as well as domestic policy. The alternative is the road we now travel, and it leads to total war and the total state.The Ethics of War: Hiroshima and Nagasaki After 50 Years | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

 

[Two Thumbs]

50,000 mark 67th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion


Always a somber and reflective anniversary.

Somber? Why be be somber? It should be a great celebration.

If it wasn't for the bombings, Japan would be a US state, and any talk of the Japanese would be in the past tense, since they would all be dead, except for those living in the states.

Don't be ridiculous (and grossly immoral).

in the island campaign, thousands of Jap soldiers were killed with only a few being captured.

Japan was training women to fight with wooden rifles, they would have fought to the death, to extinction.

You know it, don't bullshit yourself.

 

[Two Thumbs]

By the time we dropped the two Bombs Japan was already defeated. It's once powerful navy hardly existed except for a few rogue subs. Before he died FDR left instructions not to negotiate with Japan under any conditions and "give 'em hell Harry followed the instructions even though Japan was so desperate for surrender terms that they contacted Stalin (who was a US ally). The big hangup about surrender terms was the preservation of the Emperor and not executing him but Truman refused to talk. The ironic thing was that the Emperor was preserved anyway after we incinerated two cities with a horrific weapon. Life was cheap during WW2 and we Americans have been taught that the wholesale killing of civilians to force a crazy regime to surrender was a legitimate concept. Maybe it was but we have to acknowledge what we did and the mistakes we made along the way.

How is saving millions of lives a mistake?

Dropping A-bombs SAVED lives. That is a complete myth. Truman and his follow progressives promoted the lie that 500k American soldiers and untold numbers of Japanese would die if we had invaded the mainland...sadly many Americans believe this lie. They promoted this lie after receiving much criticism for incinerating women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, the US Army predicted 46k American casualties prior to the bombings.

Read the following if you want truth about the a-bombs...the bombings were all about state power and it was hoped, would impress the stinking Soviets and the murdering scumbag Stalin (who we allied with!!!!...CRAZY) and the rest of the world that America's power was unstoppable.

Recently by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.: Learn Austrian Economics
In time for the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the leftist National Catholic Reporter treats us to an entirely conventional rendition and defense of that awful episode in U.S. history, a rendition I might have expected to read in the neoconservative Weekly Standard. (Thanks to Laurence Vance for the link.) My comment, which is “awaiting moderation,” ran as follows:
I am shocked that this kind of jingoism and raw collectivism would soil the pages (so to speak) of the NCR. I would expect this in the Weekly Standard. The use of formulations like “Japan started the war” helps to evade all the relevant moral questions; if “Japan” started it, can “Japan” be laid waste? Their political class makes an idiotic and suicidal military move, so every single three-year-old in the country becomes subject to bombing, poisoning, being burned or buried alive, etc.? At what point do we start questioning the logic of this, instead of formulating all our arguments as if this were simply an obvious moral given?
Instead of asking these hard questions, the kind of questions we are trained from early childhood not to ask, indeed not even to be intellectually equipped to formulate, NCR gives us a collectivist propaganda piece. Anyone who criticizes the decision to drop the bomb is trying to “defame our country” (again, in classic neocon style, conflating the decisions of a small circle of officials with “our country”).
I guess the editor of the Paulist Catholic World was trying to “defame our country”? Or how about L’Osservatore Romano, which also criticized the bombings? Or the great Catholic philosopher G.E.M. Anscombe? Or even Pat Buchanan, who denounces the bombings as acts of barbarism?
Oh, but “we” had to burn all those kids alive, comes the reply. Why, that’s all the fanatics in Japan would understand! (What if the author had said the police needed to kick in the heads of certain races of people because that’s all they would understand? Would you thoughtlessly nod your head at that?) Completely left out of the discussion are the genuine alternatives that existed to dropping the bomb, alternatives that could have worked even with the incorrigible Japanese. (Of course, whenever someone mentions “alternatives” to a decision made by the U.S. military, he is instantly derided as some kind of leftist dreamer.)
For what these alternatives were, and for something a little more significant than mindless, knee-jerk cheering of the U.S. military, as if this group of government employees were sacrosanct, I recommend this short piece by historian Ralph Raico.
Reprinted with permission from TomWoods.com.
Left-Liberal Catholics: Yay for the Atomic Bombings! | Tom Woods

Was the Atomic Bomb Necessary to End World War II?

The first use of an atomic bomb in warfare took place on August 6, 1945. The weapon was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the U.S. bomber Enola Gay, instantaneously destroying four square miles in the middle of the population center. The blast killed 66,000 men, women, and children, and injured an additional 69,000. A full 67 percent of Hiroshima’s buildings, transportation systems, and urban structures were destroyed.
The next (and only other) atomic bomb to be dropped in warfare was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later. That blast killed 39,000 civilians and injured another 25,000; 40 percent of the city was destroyed or unrepairable. The Japanese government surrendered to the U.S. government on August 10, 1945.
Since the last “good war,” a debate has ensued over the moral legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons, particularly against civilians. The critics hold that it is a crime to incinerate civilians en masse; defenders commonly claim that the bombing was necessary to bring the war to a close, thereby saving countless American lives.
Most of those who make this claim do so in earnest. The problem is that this defense is both historically false, and taken to its logical conclusion, extremely dangerous.
But a discussion of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot proceed without an overview of the imperialist motives for Japanese military aggression, which reflected the age-old drive for power through military intimidation and conquest. The Japanese desired a series of conquests, to constitute the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere. This involved, most importantly, penetration into Korea, Manchuria, China, French Indochina, Malaya, and Burma.
What was clearly not their goal was a prolonged conflict with the United States or any of the other Allied Powers. After establishing their Asian imperium and a defensive perimeter, the Japanese expected to reach a negotiated peace.
It should be clear that the attack on the American military base at Pearl Harbor was not a part of the long-term planning of the Japanese government. Indeed, conservatives and isolationists have long held the view that the Roosevelt administration provoked the Japanese into their aggressive stance as a back door to war in Europe.
Consider the facts leading up to the attack: Roosevelt had made a commitment to Churchill that the United States would enter into the Asian conflict if the British were attacked; the United States was shipping munitions to both Russia and Great Britain; Roosevelt had placed an embargo on oil and metals against Japan; and in the most egregious example, had sent the “unofficial” Flying Tigers to attack the Japanese in China in 1941. All were violations of U.S. neutrality and acts of belligerency.
Vocal critics on the Old Right—such as John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes—held that the Roosevelt administration was aware of the attack in advance, both from decoded transmissions and intelligence reports. The weight of history has ironed out the appearance of radicalism from the latter contention. Whatever the truth of the Pearl Harbor affair, an extended war with the United States was not a desire of the Japanese.
Japanese Objectives
Apologists for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to consider the overall thrust of the Japanese objectives. These objectives do not square with the notion that Japan was intractably set into a policy of mortal combat with the Americans. Not that the Japanese were not willing to fight—they did so for four bloody and grueling years. Yet the oft-repeated claim that the Japanese were willing to sacrifice every last individual before ending the war is nonsense.
In reality, the Japanese were willing to end hostilities with the United States as quickly as they began. Startlingly neglected is the January 1945 offer of the Japanese government to surrender. As the eminent English jurist Frederick J.P. Veale pointed out in Advance to Barbarism,
“Belatedly it has been discovered that seven months before it [the atomic bomb] was dropped, in January 1945, President Roosevelt received via General MacArthur’s headquarters an offer by the Japanese Government to surrender on terms virtually identical to those accepted by the United States after the dropping of the bomb: In July 1945, as we know, Roosevelt’s successor, President Truman, discussed with Stalin at Bebelsburg the Japanese offer to surrender.”
Clearly, then, the bomb did not have to be dropped to save the lives of American soldiers. The war in the Pacific could have ended prior to the European conflict. One suspects that the conflagration’s extension beyond the confines of necessity had more to do with the politics of war than military strategy. The fact that consultation with Stalin played a key role in the decision tends to implicate both what historian William L. Neumann pointed to as “the historic ambitions of Russia in Asia” and “the expansionist element in Stalinist Communism.”
The Japanese offer to surrender came at a time when surrender made sense. Consider the strange apology for the bombing offered by the historian Robert R. Smith, the logic of which may escape even the most alert reader:
“Allied air, surface, and submarine operations had cut the home islands from all sources of raw materials. The effective and close blockade of the Allies established around the home islands would ultimately have made it impossible for the Japanese to supply their military and civilian components with even the bare essentials of life. An early surrender was inevitable, probably even without the impetus supplied by the atomic blasts. It was better for both the Allies and the Japanese the end came when it did.”
Even if the Japanese had showed no signs of surrender and had remained obstinate in belligerency, the notion that the most human carnage possible must be inflicted on the civilians of an enemy government to force a surrender and minimize the losses of one’s own troops is perverse. Consider the consequences of adopting a policy of total war. Logically, if you expect an enemy to pursue this strategy, you will do everything in your power to do the same before the enemy has the opportunity to annihilate you.
Critics of the bombing have made a strong moral case against the action. This is why the defenders of the bombing use strongly moralistic terms themselves. One of the results is possibly the most bizarre and obviously wrong.
Most veterans and defenders of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki claim that whatever the reasons for the bombing and its support, racism was not among them. This is simply not true. The U.S. War Department and related agencies that specialized in producing hate propaganda and lies developed specifically racialist attacks on the Japanese.
Propaganda films, shown to theaters across the country, whipped Americans into war hysteria with films attacking the Japanese with their “grinning yellow faces.” American movie audiences were encouraged to cheer as they watched images of the “upstart yellow dwarfs” meeting their timely ends. The government played on and encouraged prejudice and specifically racial animosity against the Japanese. To be fair, the Japanese held—and still hold—similar views of Americans, views not discouraged by their government.
The most revealing aspect of this latter point is not that racism was involved in drumming up the war spirit, but rather that the truth of the matter has been so thoroughly obscured.
Oddly enough, many apologists are conservatives, who should be the first to recognize that the essence of government is its monopoly on violence. This is a paramount consideration in their analysis of the role of the government in domestic affairs. Consistency demands that conservatives begin to apply their principles across the board—to foreign policy as well as domestic policy. The alternative is the road we now travel, and it leads to total war and the total state.The Ethics of War: Hiroshima and Nagasaki After 50 Years | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

funny how the war ended after the second one was dropped.

 

[martybegan]

How is saving millions of lives a mistake?

Dropping A-bombs SAVED lives. That is a complete myth. Truman and his follow progressives promoted the lie that 500k American soldiers and untold numbers of Japanese would die if we had invaded the mainland...sadly many Americans believe this lie. They promoted this lie after receiving much criticism for incinerating women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, the US Army predicted 46k American casualties prior to the bombings.

Read the following if you want truth about the a-bombs...the bombings were all about state power and it was hoped, would impress the stinking Soviets and the murdering scumbag Stalin (who we allied with!!!!...CRAZY) and the rest of the world that America's power was unstoppable.

Was the Atomic Bomb Necessary to End World War II?

The first use of an atomic bomb in warfare took place on August 6, 1945. The weapon was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the U.S. bomber Enola Gay, instantaneously destroying four square miles in the middle of the population center. The blast killed 66,000 men, women, and children, and injured an additional 69,000. A full 67 percent of Hiroshima’s buildings, transportation systems, and urban structures were destroyed.
The next (and only other) atomic bomb to be dropped in warfare was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later. That blast killed 39,000 civilians and injured another 25,000; 40 percent of the city was destroyed or unrepairable. The Japanese government surrendered to the U.S. government on August 10, 1945.
Since the last “good war,” a debate has ensued over the moral legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons, particularly against civilians. The critics hold that it is a crime to incinerate civilians en masse; defenders commonly claim that the bombing was necessary to bring the war to a close, thereby saving countless American lives.
Most of those who make this claim do so in earnest. The problem is that this defense is both historically false, and taken to its logical conclusion, extremely dangerous.
But a discussion of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot proceed without an overview of the imperialist motives for Japanese military aggression, which reflected the age-old drive for power through military intimidation and conquest. The Japanese desired a series of conquests, to constitute the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity sphere. This involved, most importantly, penetration into Korea, Manchuria, China, French Indochina, Malaya, and Burma.
What was clearly not their goal was a prolonged conflict with the United States or any of the other Allied Powers. After establishing their Asian imperium and a defensive perimeter, the Japanese expected to reach a negotiated peace.
It should be clear that the attack on the American military base at Pearl Harbor was not a part of the long-term planning of the Japanese government. Indeed, conservatives and isolationists have long held the view that the Roosevelt administration provoked the Japanese into their aggressive stance as a back door to war in Europe.
Consider the facts leading up to the attack: Roosevelt had made a commitment to Churchill that the United States would enter into the Asian conflict if the British were attacked; the United States was shipping munitions to both Russia and Great Britain; Roosevelt had placed an embargo on oil and metals against Japan; and in the most egregious example, had sent the “unofficial” Flying Tigers to attack the Japanese in China in 1941. All were violations of U.S. neutrality and acts of belligerency.
Vocal critics on the Old Right—such as John T. Flynn and Harry Elmer Barnes—held that the Roosevelt administration was aware of the attack in advance, both from decoded transmissions and intelligence reports. The weight of history has ironed out the appearance of radicalism from the latter contention. Whatever the truth of the Pearl Harbor affair, an extended war with the United States was not a desire of the Japanese.
Japanese Objectives
Apologists for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need to consider the overall thrust of the Japanese objectives. These objectives do not square with the notion that Japan was intractably set into a policy of mortal combat with the Americans. Not that the Japanese were not willing to fight—they did so for four bloody and grueling years. Yet the oft-repeated claim that the Japanese were willing to sacrifice every last individual before ending the war is nonsense.
In reality, the Japanese were willing to end hostilities with the United States as quickly as they began. Startlingly neglected is the January 1945 offer of the Japanese government to surrender. As the eminent English jurist Frederick J.P. Veale pointed out in Advance to Barbarism,
“Belatedly it has been discovered that seven months before it [the atomic bomb] was dropped, in January 1945, President Roosevelt received via General MacArthur’s headquarters an offer by the Japanese Government to surrender on terms virtually identical to those accepted by the United States after the dropping of the bomb: In July 1945, as we know, Roosevelt’s successor, President Truman, discussed with Stalin at Bebelsburg the Japanese offer to surrender.”
Clearly, then, the bomb did not have to be dropped to save the lives of American soldiers. The war in the Pacific could have ended prior to the European conflict. One suspects that the conflagration’s extension beyond the confines of necessity had more to do with the politics of war than military strategy. The fact that consultation with Stalin played a key role in the decision tends to implicate both what historian William L. Neumann pointed to as “the historic ambitions of Russia in Asia” and “the expansionist element in Stalinist Communism.”
The Japanese offer to surrender came at a time when surrender made sense. Consider the strange apology for the bombing offered by the historian Robert R. Smith, the logic of which may escape even the most alert reader:
“Allied air, surface, and submarine operations had cut the home islands from all sources of raw materials. The effective and close blockade of the Allies established around the home islands would ultimately have made it impossible for the Japanese to supply their military and civilian components with even the bare essentials of life. An early surrender was inevitable, probably even without the impetus supplied by the atomic blasts. It was better for both the Allies and the Japanese the end came when it did.”
Even if the Japanese had showed no signs of surrender and had remained obstinate in belligerency, the notion that the most human carnage possible must be inflicted on the civilians of an enemy government to force a surrender and minimize the losses of one’s own troops is perverse. Consider the consequences of adopting a policy of total war. Logically, if you expect an enemy to pursue this strategy, you will do everything in your power to do the same before the enemy has the opportunity to annihilate you.
Critics of the bombing have made a strong moral case against the action. This is why the defenders of the bombing use strongly moralistic terms themselves. One of the results is possibly the most bizarre and obviously wrong.
Most veterans and defenders of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki claim that whatever the reasons for the bombing and its support, racism was not among them. This is simply not true. The U.S. War Department and related agencies that specialized in producing hate propaganda and lies developed specifically racialist attacks on the Japanese.
Propaganda films, shown to theaters across the country, whipped Americans into war hysteria with films attacking the Japanese with their “grinning yellow faces.” American movie audiences were encouraged to cheer as they watched images of the “upstart yellow dwarfs” meeting their timely ends. The government played on and encouraged prejudice and specifically racial animosity against the Japanese. To be fair, the Japanese held—and still hold—similar views of Americans, views not discouraged by their government.
The most revealing aspect of this latter point is not that racism was involved in drumming up the war spirit, but rather that the truth of the matter has been so thoroughly obscured.
Oddly enough, many apologists are conservatives, who should be the first to recognize that the essence of government is its monopoly on violence. This is a paramount consideration in their analysis of the role of the government in domestic affairs. Consistency demands that conservatives begin to apply their principles across the board—to foreign policy as well as domestic policy. The alternative is the road we now travel, and it leads to total war and the total state.The Ethics of War: Hiroshima and Nagasaki After 50 Years | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

funny how the war ended after the second one was dropped.

Also, if they were only expecting 46,000 deaths, and a corresponding low number of wounded, why did they order so many purple hearts?

Are Purple Hearts from 1945 still being awarded? - The Rumor Doctor - Stripes