CDZ Hiroshima Debate: The End of the Age of Reason?

[jwoodie]

What would be so wrong in admitting that evaporating defenseless people was not the best and wisest course for a country such as America likes to think it is?
Somehow, growing up, I got the idea that 'we' were higher and better than others, especially Nazis, militarists and racists. Learning otherwise has been painful.

Are you talking about Dresden, or don't Caucasian lives matter to you?

 

[there4eyeM]

What thread are you in?

 

[Unkotare]

It is weird how some Americans have a semi-religious attitude about the country. Saying anything done collectively by the nation was a mistake is like saying God is bad. It is an article of faith that "the US is good" in a moral sense. It is one of the reasons foreigners have such a hard time understanding this country.

If you think no one in other countries is patriotic, you are mistaken.

 

[The sheeple sea]

70 years ago, we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan which helped end WW2. Since then, we have been subjected to endless debate about the wisdom and morality of using those weapons. Since there is no rational argument against the specific use of those weapons,* it is evident that the basis for this debate is entirely emotional. One may rationally argue the morality and effectiveness of bombing cities during WW2, but ascribing some special depravity to the use of an atomic bomb for this purpose is entirely devoid of logical reasoning.

What is most concerning is the fact that almost all debate on national issues is now based on emotional, rather than rational, arguments. Is this a sign of the times that we have left behind the age of reason?

*These bombs were, by definition, no more powerful than an equivalent amount of TNT. In fact, given much greater geographical dispersal, one thousand 10 ton TNT bomb loads would have a far greater destructive effect (such as in Tokyo) than a single 10 kiloton atomic bomb. Besides, how many more Japanese cities would have to be (conventionally) bombed to force a surrender? Based on our experience with Okinawa, millions more might have died if we had not used these atomic weapons.

Gonna ignore the effects of radiation then? OK, just checking.

 

[Unkotare]

It is weird how some Americans have a semi-religious attitude about the country. Saying anything done collectively by the nation was a mistake is like saying God is bad. It is an article of faith that "the US is good" in a moral sense. It is one of the reasons foreigners have such a hard time understanding this country.

If you think no one in other countries is patriotic, you are mistaken.

 

[there4eyeM]

Come on! You read better than that and you are capable of good posts!
Nothing was said about patriotism or other countries. What was mentioned was the particular fashion Americans have to 'believe' in their country like they believe in their religion. They mix in their minds the 'good' that God is (in the religious sense of the word; I'm not proselytizing here myself) with the 'good' they want to think the country is. The link is of God and country in a unique, naïve American way.

 

[Liminal]

We can tell by the number of individuals that still maintain that Japan was a threat. They have no idea that Japan had made three attempts to negotiate a surrender.

Well, a negotiated settlement was their aim from the get-go. (That is why they bombed Pearl Harbor.) Nothing less than complete occupation (a la Germany) would have replaced their militaristic culture.

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives.

But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise.

The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:

The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike

Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):

In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….

Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
The REAL Reason America Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan It Was Not To End the War Or Save Lives Washington s Blog

It was unnecessary and it was known at the time. There is no justification. There is more at the link.

There seems to have been some disagreement among the Japanese high command on that. Surrender was not an option for the hard liners, and they had just overthrown the government in a coup in 1936. They were prepared to do that again and the Emperor would have been powerless to intercede.

 

[Liminal]

How do you manage to breathe on your own?
Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany
Although the German military signatories of the May 1945 German Instruments of Surrender had been acting under instructions from Admiral Dönitz, none of the Allied Powers recognised the acting Flensburg Government as validly exercising civil power; and consequently the Allies had insisted that the German signatories should explicitly represent the German High Command alone. On the 23 May 1945, the purported German government in Flensburg was abolished, and its members taken into captivity as prisoners of war.[28]

As the surrender instrument of 8 May 1945 had been signed only by German military representatives, the full civil provisions for the unconditional surrender of Germany remained without formal basis. Consequently, the EAC text for Unconditional Surrender of Germany, redrafted as a declaration and with an extended explanatory preamble, was adopted unilaterally by the Allied Powers as the Declaration regarding the defeat of Germany on 5 June 1945.[4] This embodied the Allied contention that the German Reich had dissolved entirely on the death of Adolf Hitler, and that the vacated civil authority in Germany had now been assumed solely by the Allied Control Council.[20] Stalin had, however, already back-tracked on his previous support for the principle of German dismemberment, publicly renouncing any such policy in his victory proclamation to the Soviet people of 8 May 1945.[6] Consequently, there was no 'dismemberment clause' in the Berlin declaration text.

German Instrument of Surrender - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

BE SPECIFIC what did the Japanese offer in their "surrender"?

Go back and read what I posted already. Hell, go back and read what you posted.

I have you claim all they ask for was that the Emperor be retained. That is a bald faced LIE. Even after the first atomic bomb they demanded that NO Allied troops be allowed to enter Japan and that a ceasefire be enacted rather then a surrender. That all their lost territory be returned to them.

YOU ARE A LIAR.

Memoranda for the President Japanese Feelers Central Intelligence Agency
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/17.pdf

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/29.pdf

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/32.pdf

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/40.pdf

Do not waste my time.

The Liar is you. The Government made those demands and were over ruled by the Emperor. Further the Emperor demanded that he remain the "living God" and sole control of his Country.

Hirohito was never in control of the government.

 

[2aguy]

It is weird how some Americans have a semi-religious attitude about the country. Saying anything done collectively by the nation was a mistake is like saying God is bad. It is an article of faith that "the US is good" in a moral sense. It is one of the reasons foreigners have such a hard time understanding this country.

If you think no one in other countries is patriotic, you are mistaken.

try Japan...see how they see Japan vs. the rest of the world...

 

[2aguy]

Come on! You read better than that and you are capable of good posts!
Nothing was said about patriotism or other countries. What was mentioned was the particular fashion Americans have to 'believe' in their country like they believe in their religion. They mix in their minds the 'good' that God is (in the religious sense of the word; I'm not proselytizing here myself) with the 'good' they want to think the country is. The link is of God and country in a unique, naïve American way.

Nihon Ichibon..............

 

[Unkotare]

It is weird how some Americans have a semi-religious attitude about the country. Saying anything done collectively by the nation was a mistake is like saying God is bad. It is an article of faith that "the US is good" in a moral sense. It is one of the reasons foreigners have such a hard time understanding this country.

If you think no one in other countries is patriotic, you are mistaken.

try Japan...see how they see Japan vs. the rest of the world...

Meaning?

Come on! You read better than that and you are capable of good posts!
Nothing was said about patriotism or other countries. What was mentioned was the particular fashion Americans have to 'believe' in their country like they believe in their religion. They mix in their minds the 'good' that God is (in the religious sense of the word; I'm not proselytizing here myself) with the 'good' they want to think the country is. The link is of God and country in a unique, naïve American way.

I reject both the premise and the conclusion.

 

[Unkotare]

It is weird how some Americans have a semi-religious attitude about the country. Saying anything done collectively by the nation was a mistake is like saying God is bad. It is an article of faith that "the US is good" in a moral sense. It is one of the reasons foreigners have such a hard time understanding this country.

If you think no one in other countries is patriotic, you are mistaken.

try Japan...see how they see Japan vs. the rest of the world...

Meaning?

Come on! You read better than that and you are capable of good posts!
Nothing was said about patriotism or other countries. What was mentioned was the particular fashion Americans have to 'believe' in their country like they believe in their religion. They mix in their minds the 'good' that God is (in the religious sense of the word; I'm not proselytizing here myself) with the 'good' they want to think the country is. The link is of God and country in a unique, naïve American way.

I reject both the premise and the conclusion.

 

[2aguy]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic......those who hate Americans who love their country would not do well in Japan.

 

[Disir]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic......those who hate Americans who love their country would not do well in Japan.

Say that out loud.

 

[2aguy]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic......those who hate Americans who love their country would not do well in Japan.

Say that out loud.

Okay, I just did. Now what. Do you know anything about Japan or it's culture? Or about the untouchable class in Japan...? Or the way that you cannot become a Japanese citizen by moving there.....?

 

[Disir]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic......those who hate Americans who love their country would not do well in Japan.

Say that out loud.

Okay, I just did. Now what. Do you know anything about Japan or it's culture? Or about the untouchable class in Japan...? Or the way that you cannot become a Japanese citizen by moving there.....?

Yes. Unfortunately, it does little good here. Analyzing history does not in any way, shape or form indicate that someone hates America. In fact, it says much more about someones inability to critically think.

 

[there4eyeM]

There is nothing else like American naïvité.

 

[Unkotare]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic.......

No more than anyone else.

 

[Disir]

The Japanese are incredibly racist and nationalistic.......

No more than anyone else.

Exactly. Every country has "those people". Every country has an elite squad.

 

[Unkotare]

Patriotism is not "naïvité," nor is it an exclusively American characteristic.