The truth about Truman’s bombing Japan

[Kruska]

Imperial Japan had been on a warpath with China since the 1880's and the world couldn't care less. In its cause till 1945 approximate 15-30 million Chinese were killed.

In 1937 however a power vacuum regarding China came into place due to Hitler Germany having abandoned it's and the Weimar Republics previous economic and military policy with Chiang Kai-Shek aka Kuomintang (German-Sino Cooperation), via forming a pact that included Japan rather then China.
This is about the time when the US policy started to change it's "neutral" attitude towards Imperial Japan. In order to slow down Imperial Japans expansionist policy and their ambitions towards the Pacific area, the US invoked oil and IIRC other embargoes. At the same time they took over from the Germans in regards to fostering ties with the Kuomintang and the Chinese Nationalist Army.
Imperial Japan was not willing to succumb to US demands and worked out a plan to attack and take over most of the Pacific islands and South-East-Asia.(oil) In order to do so they decided to get rid of the US pacific fleet - resulting as we all know into the attack onto Pearl-Harbor.

Latest by July 1945 aside from the war against Imperial Japan a new front of opposing US dominance came in the form of the Soviet-Union having set it's eyes onto Manchuria.
The US had developed a promising weapon that could presumably end this war in days and at the same time might/could prevent Soviet interests of uncontrolled expansion.

Two big bangs, 100,000-200,000 dead (mostly Japanese civilians) and the war was indeed over, and as a bonus Imperial Japan capitulated unconditionally.

So now what is the issue?

 

[gipper]

Defenseless nation? Tell that to the surviving members of the crew of the USS Indianapolis of Jaws fame. She was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30th 1945. The Japanese had tens of thousands of kamikaze aircraft, thousands of suicide motorboats and manned suicide torpedoes stockpiled along with operators, fuel and explosives to make them effective. They had thousands of suicide divers waiting to use lunge mines to sink incoming landing craft. Millions of rifles, machine guns, mortars, artillery pieces and several thousand tanks with operators, fuel and ammo to make them effective against the American invading army. Japan may have stopped wasting fighters trying to intercept B-29 raids, but it was far from defenseless. I will grant you that Japan lacked the ability to project power to any great extent, but it wasn’t defenseless.

Yet daylight bombing of Japan was the norm. Little to no resistance from Japan occurred. Why? They were defenseless.

 

[braalian]

Yet daylight bombing of Japan was the norm. Little to no resistance from Japan occurred. Why? They were defenseless.

So why didn’t they surrender?

 

[gipper]

So why didn’t they surrender?

They tried for months, but Harry wanted to use his new toy.

 

[Mac-7]

The worst American value was using a weapon of mass destruction on a defenseless nation, ready to surrender.

Thats two lies in one sentence

Japan was not defenseless and it was not ready to surrender until the atomic bomb opened Hirohito’s eyes

I like Ike

But he was far away in germany when we dropped the atomic bomb

 

[Mac-7]

Oh, I see. Ike said not to drop the bombs that he didn't know about.

Ike didnt say shit till after the war when he was running for president against truman

 

[Unkotare]

Let’s take a look at that. The Japanese attacked and conquered Manchuria, annexed it, then attacked China. The Japanese killed, raped and pillaged innocent Manchurian and Chinese civilians who had no input in their government’s decisions for nearly a decade. The Japanese invaded Malaya, Burma,Indonesia and the Philippines, killing, raping and pillaging for four years. The Japanese Army Unit 731 experimented on living Chinese civilians as well as Dutch, Chinese, British and American POWs doing everything from freezing them to infecting them with horrific diseases and inflicting gunshot wounds before vivisecting them without anasthesia to see the results. The Japanese Army also infected innocent Chinese civilians who had no voice in their government with diseases like Anthrax and sprayed lethal chemical weapons on them, killing possibly millions of them. The Japanese worked tens of thousands of civilians and POWs to death on projects like the “railway of death” through Indo-China and Burma ( where the fictional events of the movie Bridge over the River Kwai occurred). THESE are the people you think were unfairly treated by dropping nuclear weapons on? There is an old saying “ what goes around, comes around”. Japanese civilians profited from the actions of their government between 1936 and 1945, but you don’t think they should have suffered in 1945?

You are claiming that the atomic bombs were used in revenge on behalf of China?

 

[ILOVEISRAEL]

Americans need to come to the realization that the bombings of civilians was really mass murder, not unlike what Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were guilty of.

Great column on the subject.

The Atomic Bombing of Japan, Reconsidered
By Alan Mosley
Mises.org

January 2, 2019

Russia’s move, in fact, compelled the Japanese to consider unconditional surrender; until then, they were only open to a conditional surrender that left their Emperor Hirohito some dignity and protections from war-crimes trials. Ward concludes that, as in the European theatre, Truman didn’t beat Japan; Stalin did.

Harry Truman never expressed regret publicly over his decision to use the atomic bombs. However, he did order an independent study on the state of the war effort leading up to August of 1945, and the strategic value of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. In 1946, the U.S. Bombing Survey published its findings, which concluded as follows: “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.” This is an intensive condemnation of Truman’s decision, seeing as Russia did enter the war, and that plans for an invasion had been developed.

As Timothy P. Carney writesfor the Washington Examiner, the fog of war can be a tricky thing. But if we’re forced to side with Truman, or Eisenhower and the other dissenting military leaders, the Eisenhower position isn’t merely valid; it actually aligns better with some fundamental American values. Given all the uncertainty, both at the time and with modern historical revisionism, it’s better to look to principle rather than fortune-telling. One principle that should be near the top of everyone’s list is this: it’s wrong to target civilians with weapons of mass destruction. The deliberate killing of innocent men, women, and children by the hundreds of thousandscannot be justified under any circumstances, much less the ambiguous ones Truman encountered. Whether his decision was motivated by indignation toward Japanese “ pigheadedness” or concern for his troops, Truman’s use of such devastating weapons against non-combatants should not be excused. Americans must strive for complete and honest analysis of the past (and present) conflicts. And if she is to remain true to her own ideals, America must strive for more noble and moral ends—in all conflicts, domestic and foreign—guided by our most cherished first principles, such as the Golden Rule. At the very least, Americans should not try so hard to justify mass murder.

The Atomic Bombing of Japan - LewRockwell LewRockwell.com

Maybe this is something the Japanesrshould have thought of before they

 

[Unkotare]

The only terms the Japanese Government were willing to accept was a return to status quo ante December 5th, 1941. No war crimes trials, no disarmament and no loss of territory seized before that date. They wanted to keep Manchuria, China and Korea. in other words they wanted a do-over of the war at a future date of their choosing.

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

 

[gipper]

Maybe this is something the Japanesrshould have thought of before they

So in your mind the US was fully justified in mass murdering hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians because 2400 US military personnel died at Pearl Harbor.

Okay. Sure.

 

[Unkotare]

2 days before Roosevelt left for Yalta, MacArthur forwarded a 40 page memorandum to the White House outlining 5 separate overtures for surrender he had received.

.

 

[Unkotare]

Imperial Japan had been on a warpath with China since the 1880's and the world couldn't care less. In its cause till 1945 approximate 15-30 million Chinese were killed.

In 1937 however a power vacuum regarding China came into place due to Hitler Germany having abandoned it's and the Weimar Republics previous economic and military policy with Chiang Kai-Shek aka Kuomintang (German-Sino Cooperation), via forming a pact that included Japan rather then China.
This is about the time when the US policy started to change it's "neutral" attitude towards Imperial Japan. In order to slow down Imperial Japans expansionist policy and their ambitions towards the Pacific area, the US invoked oil and IIRC other embargoes. At the same time they took over from the Germans in regards to fostering ties with the Kuomintang and the Chinese Nationalist Army.
Imperial Japan was not willing to succumb to US demands and worked out a plan to attack and take over most of the Pacific islands and South-East-Asia.(oil) In order to do so they decided to get rid of the US pacific fleet - resulting as we all know into the attack onto Pearl-Harbor.

Latest by July 1945 aside from the war against Imperial Japan a new front of opposing US dominance came in the form of the Soviet-Union having set it's eyes onto Manchuria.
The US had developed a promising weapon that could presumably end this war in days and at the same time might/could prevent Soviet interests of uncontrolled expansion.

Two big bangs, 100,000-200,000 dead (mostly Japanese civilians) and the war was indeed over, and as a bonus Imperial Japan capitulated unconditionally.

So now what is the issue?

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

 

[Unkotare]

Thats two lies in one sentence

Japan was not defenseless and it was not ready to surrender until the atomic bomb opened Hirohito’s eyes

I like Ike

But he was far away in germany when we dropped the atomic bomb

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

 

[braalian]

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

They started a war they couldn’t finish.

They had zero rights to any peace terms whatsoever. They should have surrendered unconditionally much earlier.

 

[Mac-7]

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

What your newspaper article advocates is to leave the military dictatorship of Imperial Japan still in control

What FDR and later Truman demanded is that the war criminals in japan be brought to justice and a new and peaceful japan to replace the old war machine

That sounds sensible to me

 

[Unkotare]

What your newspaper article advocates ...

You didn't read it.

 

[Mac-7]

You didn't read it.

I did read it

Maybe you didnt

The japanese militarists proposed remaining in power

That was unacceptable

 

[Kruska]

Chicago Tribune 14 Aug 1965, page 1 - Newspapers.com

View the digital scanned newspaper from Chicago Tribune dated 14 Aug 1965, page 1.

www.newspapers.com

Interesting to also read upon the Russia/Germany issue - assuming/suggesting the war could have ended in 1944
Off course possible by keeping the Nazi regime untouched - no way the USA or the Western allies would accept that- so that newspaper article is just humbug.

Right into the week of the nukes being dropped, the Japanese government was still demanding guarantees that their government leadership won't be touched and brought to trial, aside from keeping their "beloved" Emperor untouched in place.
You think that Hitler Germany capitulated unconditionally because of Dresden or other totally destroyed cities as well as it's infrastructure? Certainly not the case, they capitulated because the Allies had occupied more then 80% of the Reich.
Why should the USA need to occupy 50-90% of the Japanese mainland - risking tens of thousand or a hundred thousand and more of dead GI's if maybe two or three bombs can do the job.

 

[Kruska]

So in your mind the US was fully justified in mass murdering hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians because 2400 US military personnel died at Pearl Harbor.

Okay. Sure.

If you believe that the imperial Japanese aggression since 1880 till 1945 only resulted in 2400 dead US military personal - then you must be out of your mind.

 

[gipper]

If you believe that the imperial Japanese aggression since 1880 till 1945 only resulted in 2400 dead US military personal - then you must be out of your mind.

Since we’re off topic, how about USG aggression the past few decades? Any idea how many have died?