A Question

[williepete]

Two questions:

1. What were Stalin's "post war ambitions", and how do we know about them?

2. How many lives did the use of atomic bombs save, and how do we know that?

Hi Mememe,

The short answer to both questions is to read the 3 books in my post. They are written by historians far better than I'll ever be.

I'll try to be very brief:

What were Stalin's "post war ambitions", and how do we know about them? Stalin's post war ambitions were: 1. To create a ring of communist-controlled countries around the Soviet Union to act as a buffer between the USSR and what he considered to be the aggressive imperialistic Western countries. The Soviet Union had just survived a brutal war which left millions dead and a devastated land. In building a buffer, the Soviets intended to protect themselves from ever being invaded again. 2. Advance international communist interests by ultimately overthrowing every democratic nation and incorporating them into the communist sphere. We know about the international communist agenda by their often-stated goals, written directives and actions in the Cold War. We know about Stalin's paranoia by documents recently (post 1989) revealed by the fall of the USSR. I recommend the dozens of new books out since the fall of the USSR which have used interior Soviet documents as source material. We know about Soviet global strategy from the history of the 60-year-long Cold War. There is no end to books, records, interviews and living persons with first hand knowledge of the Cold War. (Your humble servant being one of them).


2. How many lives did the use of atomic bombs save, and how do we know that? The short answer is we'll never know since we have only one outcome. You'll drive yourself crazy in a fruitless pursuit trying to chase alternative historical outcomes. As I stated in my post, by projecting the smaller scale losses at Okinawa to the proposed larger scale invasion of the Japanese mainland, the figure of 1 million dead Allied soldiers and sailors was reached. With a kill ratio of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 or 1 to you-make-up-the-number, you're looking at combined Allied and Japanese losses well into the millions. Given the Japanese preference to kill themselves rather than surrender as evidenced on Saipan and Okinawa, the Allied war leaders were faced with a potential tally sheet that was off the scale. Just for our discussion, let's pick the low kill ratio of 1 to 3. One million dead Allied men plus 3 million dead Japanese equals 4 million dead. Mind you, this is a very low estimate. The difference between 4 million and the 110,000 estimated dead from the two atomic bombs would be the estimated number of lives saved. Those were the kind of numbers driving the decision makers in 1945.


I hope this helped but please read the books if you find this topic interesting.


Cheers,

 

[mememe]

I
What were Stalin's "post war ambitions", and how do we know about them? Stalin's post war ambitions were: 1. To create a ring of communist-controlled countries around the Soviet Union to act as a buffer between the USSR and what he considered to be the aggressive imperialistic Western countries. The Soviet Union had just survived a brutal war which left millions dead and a devastated land. In building a buffer, the Soviets intended to protect themselves from ever being invaded again.

2. Advance international communist interests by ultimately overthrowing every democratic nation and incorporating them into the communist sphere.

3. We know about the international communist agenda by their often-stated goals, written directives and actions in the Cold War.
We know about Stalin's paranoia by documents recently (post 1989) revealed by the fall of the USSR.

4. I recommend the dozens of new books out since the fall of the USSR which have used interior Soviet documents as source material.
We know about Soviet global strategy from the history of the 60-year-long Cold War. There is no end to books, records, interviews and living persons with first hand knowledge of the Cold War. (Your humble servant being one of them).

II
2. How many lives did the use of atomic bombs save, and how do we know that? The short answer is we'll never know since we have only one outcome.

I
1. In other words, nothing that was not already agreed prior to the end of WW2 between the USSR, UK and US! Then, how did murdering civilians with atomic bomb could have influenced this prior three-way arrangement?!

2. Name me one attempt by the USSR to overthrow "every democratic nation and incorporating them into the communist sphere"! On the other hand, post WW2 world history is full of examples of USA orchestrated coups on all continents!

3. Please, name me these "directives".

4. I am not interested in "books", but I am very much interested in the documents. Please, NAME me at least some of them.

II
And that's the bottom line: claim about atomic bombs "saving civilian lives" is utter nonsense.
As for "saved military", then it's no different from Nazis mass murdering civilians to "save" their military from possible hostilities on occupied territories.

 

[Ernie S.]

Litterally, no. As citizens ruled by their leader, yes.

So, the systematic execution of every civilian in the country would have been ok with you (if such a thing were pracitcally possible).

No, and it wouldn't have been necessary either. The demonstration of our capabilities was all that was needed for Japan to be demoralized.

Killing armies is pretty ineffective as we've seen in every conflict since WWII.
Only by demoralizing the enemy and removing their will to fight can war be won and peace achieved.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan may have taken a quarter million lives, but likely saved 4 times as many in a land invasion.

 

[there4eyeM]

"Had we been forced to attack their mainland it would have cost many more lives........"

Who could have forced the US to invade? Why would invading have been necessary? Japan could not produce enough to eat and had no significant industrial capacity remaining. The US military skipped many Japanese occupied islands and areas because they were cut off and meaningless. On the big scale, so were the main islands by August '45. It only remained to sit and wait for the white flag to rise. No one needed to die.

But of course the wonderful Soviet allies had just joined in the fight against Japan a couple of weeks before the bomb and were gobbling up big areas of ex-Japanese holdings. Some think this was another reason Truman used the bomb; end it faster so that some control over Russian occupation could be achieved.

In retrospect, it is no more forgivable than, say, slavery. Yes, it conformed to the thinking of the time and, yes, it was morally and humanly reprehensible. All the 'strategic' and 'carpet' bombing was the same, as it was in Vietnam as well.

 

[Ernie S.]

If the A-bombs hadn't been used back then, demonstrating their truly destructive power and ability to annihilate, they would more likely be used today. It was a one-off of sorts.

Conventional bombings during WWII were no less of a "war crime".

Nope. They asked for it, they got it.

Anything to justify crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US!

Then why did you, Americans, got outraged by 9/11? After all, it was a "one-off of sorts". Or do you have different moral boundaries for yourselves and for the rest of the world?

There is a vast difference between starting a war and ending one.
Where is your home anyway, mememe?

 

[mememe]

Litterally, no. As citizens ruled by their leader, yes.

So, the systematic execution of every civilian in the country would have been ok with you (if such a thing were pracitcally possible).

No, and it wouldn't have been necessary either. The demonstration of our capabilities was all that was needed for Japan to be demoralized.

Killing armies is pretty ineffective as we've seen in every conflict since WWII.
Only by demoralizing the enemy and removing their will to fight can war be won and peace achieved.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan may have taken a quarter million lives, but likely saved 4 times as many in a land invasion.

In other words, since the US got away with mass slaughter of civilians in Japan, in every other war US used the same tactic: it TARGETS CIVILIANS to force the government into surrender!

You are correct. The US did it in Vietnam (be it unsuccessful); it did it in Serbia, in Iraq, in Libya ...

 

[mememe]

If the A-bombs hadn't been used back then, demonstrating their truly destructive power and ability to annihilate, they would more likely be used today. It was a one-off of sorts.

Conventional bombings during WWII were no less of a "war crime".

Nope. They asked for it, they got it.

Anything to justify crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US!

Then why did you, Americans, got outraged by 9/11? After all, it was a "one-off of sorts". Or do you have different moral boundaries for yourselves and for the rest of the world?

There is a vast difference between starting a war and ending one.

Japan did not start the war!
And if to follow your logic, would you welcome the use of WMD on US cities for starting scores of wars around the world?

 

[there4eyeM]

"Japan did not start the war!"

Gracious, I've made a serious mistake with all my posts. Sorry, I thought we were talking about the Japan of about 1937 to 1945.
What war did the US have with Japan that the US started? I didn't know about it.

 

[Publius1787]

There were some interesting responses to this question - and it's a tough one.

Do you consider the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be war crimes? ? Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

In other words, since the US got away with mass slaughter of civilians in Japan, in every other war US used the same tactic: it TARGETS CIVILIANS to force the government into surrender!

You are correct. The US did it in Vietnam (be it unsuccessful); it did it in Serbia, in Iraq, in Libya ...

Why would it be a war crime? More civilians died in the battle of Okinawa than almost both bombs over Heroshima and Nagasaki combined. Did you know that? Why, you ask? Because to the Naval bombardment, the fact that the Japanese were pressing Japanese civilins in to service, and the thousands of Japanese civilians shot for seeking food and water from American forces. Japanese culture dictates that submission is dishoner and death is preferd even if it means to murder your fellow countrymen. Can you imagine how many Okinawa's we would have had if it were not for those two bombs!? make no mistake about it. those bombs saved waaaay more Japanese than American lives. Consider it an act of compassion.

 

[SFC Ollie]

So, the systematic execution of every civilian in the country would have been ok with you (if such a thing were pracitcally possible).

No, and it wouldn't have been necessary either. The demonstration of our capabilities was all that was needed for Japan to be demoralized.

Killing armies is pretty ineffective as we've seen in every conflict since WWII.
Only by demoralizing the enemy and removing their will to fight can war be won and peace achieved.
Dropping atomic bombs on Japan may have taken a quarter million lives, but likely saved 4 times as many in a land invasion.

In other words, since the US got away with mass slaughter of civilians in Japan, in every other war US used the same tactic: it TARGETS CIVILIANS to force the government into surrender!

You are correct. The US did it in Vietnam (be it unsuccessful); it did it in Serbia, in Iraq, in Libya ...

You are extremely misguided. Or ignorant of facts.......

 

[there4eyeM]

History does not view it as humanitarian.

 

[Publius1787]

History does not view it as humanitarian.

Yeah, because how something is viewed always outweighs what it actually was?

 

[mememe]

"Japan did not start the war!"

Gracious, I've made a serious mistake with all my posts. Sorry, I thought we were talking about the Japan of about 1937 to 1945.
What war did the US have with Japan that the US started? I didn't know about it.

Japan started WW2? Or, maybe it was a special US/Japanese war? Or why did US and USSR agree to JOINTLY FINISH WW2 with military action against Japan?

 

[regent]

Another side of the Hiroshima story.
I was on my way home in July and August of that year, a passenger on the navy hospital ship Bountiful. The ship's cargo was mostly marines and army from Okinawa and a few of us from Luzon.
The ships speakers and our bed earphones kept us up to date on the news of the dropping of the bombs. Finally the news came that the Japanese had surrendered. When the announcement was made of the surrender there was no cheering, no heroic phrases, no clapping, no laughing, nothing, nothing but silence.

 

[there4eyeM]

"Why would it be a war crime? More civilians died in the battle of Okinawa than almost both bombs over Heroshima and Nagasaki combined. Did you know that? Why, you ask? Because to the Naval bombardment, the fact that the Japanese were pressing Japanese civilins in to service, and the thousands of Japanese civilians shot for seeking food and water from American forces. Japanese culture dictates that submission is dishoner and death is preferd even if it means to murder your fellow countrymen. Can you imagine how many Okinawa's we would have had if it were not for those two bombs!? make no mistake about it. those bombs saved waaaay more Japanese than American lives. Consider it an act of compassion."

Sorry, but this argument by itself does not separate the bombings from possibly being war crimes. Japanese actions are their fault. Yes, as I said earlier, probably more Japanese would have died by the US waiting for surrender. That would be their choice and their crime. Americans and the world would like to think America stands for more than murder as expedient.

 

[mememe]

Why would it be a war crime?

Because US DELIBERATELY TARGETED CIVILIANS FOR MASS EXTERMINATION.

 

[Unkotare]

there was a strong and influential faction in the Japanese government and military who thought it far better to go down fighting than suffer the disgrace of surrender. As unbelievable as the words are to Western readers, the books put you in the minds of those who preferred death to dishonor.

Why would those words be "unbelievable" to Western readers? The concept is not foreign to the West at all.

What's unbelievable is that an exhausted, starving, demoralized public who had long since realized the war wasn't going to turn out well would have shared that sentiment enough to take to hand-to-hand fighting with an overwhelming and unstoppable military force. People in America wanted the war to end quickly, but not nearly as badly as people in Japan did.

 

[mememe]

You are extremely misguided. Or ignorant of facts.......

Are you telling me US did not deliberately target civilians in Dresden, Japan, Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq and Libya?

 

[Unkotare]

With the USSR gone, the US started WW3.

Really? When?

When a series of civil wars broke out in Yugoslavia -- the first victim of coloured revolutions...

That hardly constitutes WWIII.

 

[Publius1787]

"Japan did not start the war!"

Gracious, I've made a serious mistake with all my posts. Sorry, I thought we were talking about the Japan of about 1937 to 1945.
What war did the US have with Japan that the US started? I didn't know about it.

Japan started WW2? Or, maybe it was a special US/Japanese war? Or why did US and USSR agree to JOINTLY FINISH WW2 with military action against Japan?

No, liberal academia dictates that America wanted to dominate and exploit the Japanese monopoly on hello kitty and pokemon merchandise. That started WWII.