68 years ago today

[regent]

Truman has been rated by historians in a number of different polls since 1962. His lowest rating was ninth best American president and his highest rating was fifth best American president. The numbers vary because new presidents are added to the ratings, different groups rate and new evidence emerges. Still fifth to ninth best president of the United States out of 44 is not too bad.

 

[Unkotare]

There he goes again...

 

[regent]

There he goes again...

Nope it's the historians doing the ratings, I'm just conveying their rating results, but I have to admit I agree with them. Most patriotic, good American citizens cannot even name all the presidents, must less rate them. In addition most citizens rate the presidents on one criterion: the party to which the president was beholden.

 

[MaryL]

Here is a question: What if America refrained from using nuclear weapons, and instead, what if the American military starved or pounded millions of Japanese into submission over a prolonged period. Of many years. What if many more American servicemen died securing Japan? Would that have been a better alternative?

 

[MaryL]

Before the use and knowledge of nuclear weapons, there was a phrase here in the states ,something like "Tokyo by 48'" because Americans thought we would be fighting well into the Japanese homeland with low tech, hand to hand fighting, costing god knows how many lives. Militarily or civilian. Given the fact Japan initiated this conflict, I am not seeing a problem using unconventional weapons to stop such a desperate power allied with NAZI Germany. Japanese or the Germans at that time had no qualms targeting people because of race….

 

[namvet]

Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6, 1945. Miscellaneous Historical Documents Collection.

 

[namvet]

Here is a question: What if America refrained from using nuclear weapons, and instead, what if the American military starved or pounded millions of Japanese into submission over a prolonged period. Of many years. What if many more American servicemen died securing Japan? Would that have been a better alternative?

the army was already starving them. these civilians were nothing more than expendable assets to them

 

[MaryL]

Here is a question: What if America refrained from using nuclear weapons, and instead, what if the American military starved or pounded millions of Japanese into submission over a prolonged period. Of many years. What if many more American servicemen died securing Japan? Would that have been a better alternative?

the army was already starving them. these civilians were nothing more than expendable assets to them

OK...Which army are you referring to? The Japanese were starving their own...and they started the American involvement in WWII. These warmongers didn't even spare their own. It's pathetic, they, Japanese, created kamikaze and expected their own to die defending the homeland. Sad to say the least. The Hiroshima/Nagasaki attack was later a weak excuse to inspire the 9/11 attack on innocent Americans by whacko nutcases looking for justification....it is sad. Pathetic.

 

[namvet]

Here is a question: What if America refrained from using nuclear weapons, and instead, what if the American military starved or pounded millions of Japanese into submission over a prolonged period. Of many years. What if many more American servicemen died securing Japan? Would that have been a better alternative?

the army was already starving them. these civilians were nothing more than expendable assets to them

OK...Which army are you referring to? Be advised: the Japanese started the American involvement in WWII. That simple. You wish to add to that?

what other army was in Japan???

 

[MaryL]

I support the use of the A-Bomb in Japan, bottom line.

 

[M14 Shooter]

So, if I can summarize your point...civilians are legitimate targets for destruction because they are forced by their tyrannical government to produce war goods.

Rather silly interpretation of my statement.
The means of production are legitimate targets, something even you will agree with.
Within those means of production are civilians. As part of the efforts to destroy those means, there is no way to avoid the deaths of those civilains.
And, it matters not how/why those civilians are there - be they slave labor in a German ball bearing plant or Rosie the Riveter in a Kaiser shipyard.


I challenge you to soundly suppot this position.

Put yourself in the shoes of those Japanese people. Did they have a choice in supporting the actions of their tyrannical government or not?

Completely irrelevant to anythig I said.

We are debating the a-bombing and fire bombing of Japanese cities. Are you claiming that all those terrible bombings were targeted at military facilities?

Most, if not all, of the firebombing raids had a specific military target. Fact of the matter is that the USAAF dscovered that the most effective way to take out these targets was low-level incendiary raids, rather than high-altitude precision HE raids, because of the nature of the targets, the area around them, and the negative effects of the jet stream on the preformanceof the B29 at altitude.

If you do not see that as immoral, then nothing is immoral.

I challenged you to soundly support your position.
Your statement, bolded above, does not do that.
Feel free to try again.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Before the use and knowledge of nuclear weapons, there was a phrase here in the states ,something like "Tokyo by 48'" because Americans thought we would be fighting well into the Japanese homeland with low tech, hand to hand fighting, costing god knows how many lives. Militarily or civilian. Given the fact Japan initiated this conflict, I am not seeing a problem using unconventional weapons to stop such a desperate power allied with NAZI Germany. Japanese or the Germans at that time had no qualms targeting people because of race….

Fact of the matter is that absent our nuclear strikes, the war would have continued unabated, with a far greater loss of life on both sides - but especially on the side of the Japanese.

Forcing the surrender with nuclear weapons unquestionably saved more lives than it cost.

 

[Indofred]

68 years ago today, on August 5, 1945, a single B-29 bomber dropped a single uranium bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. 80,000 Japanese people were killed, and no Americans. By the end of 1945, approx. 30,000 more Japanese had died from injuries, starvations, and radiation.

Three days later, on August 8, a plutonium bomb was caried to Kobe, Japan. But the city was hidden by clouds, so the plane turned and flew to the alternate target, Nagasaki, and dropped it there instead. 50,000 people died from the explosion, with 20,000 more dying within a few months.

The bombing help end the war quickly, made an invasion of the Japanese home islands unnecessary, and saved millions of Japanese and American casualties that would have died in such an invasion.

I agree.
The bombs were terrible but the alternative was far worse.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

In 1945, the USAAF burned Japanese cities to the ground, nightly, without regard to the well-being of Japanese civilians - a lot more area was destroyed and a lot more civilians were killed in these raids than the atom bomb drops - so, how is that a meaningful basis for this judgement?


How does killing 200,000 civilians with two aircraft differ morally from killing 200,000 civilins with 2,000 aircraft?

It doesn't, but as a single act there is certainly a difference in magnitude. I'm not accusing you in particular, but there seems to be a reluctance among some to acknowledge the tragedy of those bombings in the haste justify them. There are arguments that justify the bombings. There is also a moral price. That is war.

Yes. Every decision we make from euthanizing a beloved pet because we cannot afford to restore him to health to eating meat from slaughtered animals to serving on a jury that will send a person to prison or cause him to be sentenced to death, to how we choose to spend and use our time, energy, abilities, and private resources all exacts a moral price.

To choose to defend yourself and/or your loved ones or others from a person or beast intent on doing them harm exacts a moral price.

To accept your country's call to train to kill and pick up a weapon of war exacts a moral price. To kill or be killed is a moral choice.

To choose to walk away from a crippled Japan still our enemy or bludgeon them into submission and unconditional surrender was a moral choice. To choose to kill many unconventionally rather than the almost certainty of killing many more via conventional means was a moral choice.

Given the limited alternatives we had, given the fact that the Japanese people are now a wholly independent, peaceful, prosperous nation that are friends with the world rather than oppressor, given that killing the many almost certainly saved millions in blood as well as treasure, and given that the demonstration has meant no nuclear weapons used in anger now for almost seven decades, I have to believe we made the right choice.

Whether it was the right choice or not certainly is and has been the debate ever since. I think your analysis here is a good one. My problem is with the black/white view of war. You don't seem to have it, so good on ya.

War has enormous amounts of gray area involved. It is impossible to engage in a large-scale war and not commit actions that are immoral. Contrary to the world view of many extremist conservatives, it is possible for an act to be immoral and still the right choice.

Approximately 200,000 civilians were killed in those two bombings. There is a moral argument that killing children and/or unborn life is immoral. It stands to reason that, amongst 200,000 people, a number of them were children and pregnant women. By the reasoning that killing unborn life is immoral, then how is that not immoral? The simple answer is: that it is. There really is no denying it. But, as has been appropriately put, that is what happens in war.

However, in the black-and-white world that some live, these considerations seem at the most unimportant. That is sadly the case these days. After WWII, it was this acknowledgment of the immoral that prompted us the help both Japan and Germany rebuild and become prosperous nations. It is, IMHO, the lack of this acknowledgment that contributes to the fact that we don't do that anymore. Since WWII, when have we ever atoned for our military actions like that? No, since WWII our tendency is to engage in large-scale military operations and then, for the most part, abandon the civilians whose lives we affected, or at least we don't lend the kind of assistance we did to the Japanese and the Germans.

So, the choice to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been the right one, but any refusal to acknowledge the tragedy and immorality of it is, IMHO, tragic itself.

 

[regent]

Before the use and knowledge of nuclear weapons, there was a phrase here in the states ,something like "Tokyo by 48'" because Americans thought we would be fighting well into the Japanese homeland with low tech, hand to hand fighting, costing god knows how many lives. Militarily or civilian. Given the fact Japan initiated this conflict, I am not seeing a problem using unconventional weapons to stop such a desperate power allied with NAZI Germany. Japanese or the Germans at that time had no qualms targeting people because of race….

Actually, I think the phrase was created by the Pacific GI's and went something like this: "Golden Gate in 48, breadline in 49." There were a number of other differences in the ETO GI's and the Pacific GI's, the phrase dog face soldier applied to the ETO infantryman, but seldom used in the Pacific. In a way, two different wars. I think the German soldier was by far the better soldier, but he did surrender, and the Japanese soldier did not. The question was would that code used by the Japanese soldier hold true for the Japanese civilian?

 

[Unkotare]

Forcing the surrender with nuclear weapons unquestionably saved more lives than it cost.

Again, we can't know that. You just need a simple answer to a complex question because you are a simpleton.

 

[Unkotare]

I think the German soldier was by far the better soldier, but he did surrender, and the Japanese soldier did not.

About 50,000 did, despite heavy propaganda that led most to believe they would be tortured and killed by Allied forces if they did so.

 

[Unkotare]

After WWII, it was this acknowledgment of the immoral that prompted us the help both Japan and Germany rebuild and become prosperous nations.

That was not prompted by morality or feelings of guilt. It was simply in our own national interests.

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

After WWII, it was this acknowledgment of the immoral that prompted us the help both Japan and Germany rebuild and become prosperous nations.

That was not prompted by morality or feelings of guilt. It was simply in our own national interests.

I don't doubt for a moment that this was a factor.

 

[regent]

I think the German soldier was by far the better soldier, but he did surrender, and the Japanese soldier did not.

About 50,000 did, despite heavy propaganda that led most to believe they would be tortured and killed by Allied forces if they did so.

I don't think Europeans believed they would be killed or tortured by allied forces. The Europeans had accepted the idea of surrender by any and all forces for many years.
Nor did the Japanese usually kill prisoners if all went well. The difference is that the Japanese believed one ceased to be a soldier if they surrendered. Real soldiers did not surrender but fought to the death, and that was the crux of the problem. Would we have to kill 4 million or so soldiers and how many civilians before the war was over, and what could we expect to lose?