The Nuking of Japan

[jonb]

Yes, they were crazed. They were also really effective. The bottom line is that their generals were not stupid. Pearl Harbor alone is enough to show this.

Stupid? No, but gamblers, to go into a war that you know from he start you cannot win militarily, but that you rest your hope on the other side not having the will to fight back, that is a very risky strategy, and the cost of a conventional landing on Japan may just be enough to swing the bet in your favour.

[Creed of Heresy]

Oh I know. Apparently my grandfather was actually there to witness the Saipan suicides, he had a diary and he wrote in it, we ended up recovering it and reading through it. He talked about pregnant women cutting their fetuses and stomachs out with kitchen knives rather than let US soldiers near them because they believed that US soldiers would commit the most indescribably horrific tortures upon them if they let themselves be taken alive. He also spoke of the absolute bemusement and disbelief of the few who didn't/couldn't kill themselves when after a week in care of US soldiers they hadn't even been struck. In his words: "It was as if they had been given a warning from God Almighty Himself straight to their ears, a warning and a threat...that never came to pass."

And you ARE right, you weren't saying they were good guys. Nor was I really saying you were, either, I'm just saying that the wording of that you'd rather go about your business with people like that was...poor, I guess.

From your position, I would say it as "I would rather the US had thrown more soldiers into the meat-grinder than have us brutally annihilate entire cities of civilians." Something like that. The original statement WAS more vehement and meaningful but it carries with it some unpleasant insinuations, even if not intended...that's what I'm trying to get at.

[Shell B]

Sorry, CoH. That is another straw man. I never said I would have preferred to continue to fight, which is what throwing them in a meat grinder insinuates. I didn't say they should do any business with Japan, either. Surrender does not mean lifting trade embargos. A well negotiated surrender could have meant nothing more than, "Hey, let's stop fighting." They would have negotiated. They did negotiate. Saying it is because of the nukes is like saying, "Yeah, my wife made my dinner . . . because I punched her fucking teeth out."

[Mystic]

Anyways, this is not like the deciding factor of US foreign policies. Today is September 11. Guess what else happened on that day?

Chile on September 11, 1973: "Thousands of people were murdered by a CIA-backed dictator, who, with American governmental help and military aid, seized power in that country on that exact day. By the time he was forced to leave office, there were over thirty thousand dead Chileans." (quoted from another member on another forum).

Politics is dirty, and some of us are trying to make it clean.

[jonb]

Sorry, CoH. That is another straw man. I never said I would have preferred to continue to fight, which is what throwing them in a meat grinder insinuates. I didn't say they should do any business with Japan, either. Surrender does not mean lifting trade embargos. A well negotiated surrender could have meant nothing more than, "Hey, let's stop fighting." They would have negotiated. They did negotiate. Saying it is because of the nukes is like saying, "Yeah, my wife made my dinner . . . because I punched her fucking teeth out."

But they did not negotiate, they had to surrender. I have forgotten the term used, that was the American position, but it did not allow for negotiation.

[System of Solace]

Yes, I made a mistake in saying Russia helped us.

My point was it would have ended in a massive amount of casualties, more so then the bombings.

It doesn't matter what Russia wanted. They had declared war and Japan could not maintain it. They were cut the fuck off. What would they have done? Thrown rice at us? (That's not racist. They have a lot of rice. I am proving a point about their natural resources.)

They probably would have stopped at Manchuria or Japan would have surrendered by the time they were ready. Of course Russia would fuck Japan up.

Sitting on our asses? Oh my. As for the differing governmental ideas, hell yeah, they helped cause it. They did not come about because of the war. You're backtracking. Russia was not "helping the United States." You got that wrong.

I believe I said "unless we were sitting on our asses".

You like scarecrows too?

Pictures of Japanese torture. That proves no point, but we at least know Japan was not innocent from these same tactics. It had nothing to do with the argument.[/quote]


Jonb: Unconditional surrender.
Mystic: Nothing to do with our argument. I won't try to make that clean, it's just that your argument for this topic was pretty weak.

[Creed of Heresy]

No no no, stop taking me so literally! XD Ok, here's the thing I'm saying...let me try to make it a bit more clear. I can't advocate surrender to a nation like that just because the decision of the atomic bombings comes up. If it were to come up to the point of "We either nuke them or we surrender to them," I would say "nuke them." Why? Because of the crimes they had committed. Ultimately the nuking, if you compare it to the crimes they had committed over the previous eight years, was like a bathtub-full of water being poured into a pond [not saying a drop in the ocean; that'd be criminally insulting]. Given what they had done, and their capacity for doing more of it, they had to be stopped. If that meant committing an atrocity minor in scale to what they had done, so be it.

Basically...pragmatism, lesser of two evils kind of thing. Ultimately that's where my retrospective support of the atomic bombings comes from, is the evidence that I've dug up that doesn't point to Japan doing much surrendering under "mere" duress of invasion and what they seemed willing to do to prevent such an invasion.

That make it a little clearer, I hope?

[jonb]

Yes, I made a mistake in saying Russia helped us.

No, the Soviet Union did not help, in fact their coming into the conflict was one of the driving motives that made the American government seek a rapid end.
A Japan occupied by communists would have severely affected the Wests position.

[System of Solace]

I think this got taken a bit too far. But at this point I'm just defending what I said previously and not asserting anything new. I've never been good at debating morality, especially in this case because a lot of our arguments are just assumptions of what might have happened.

Shell: That's what I mean, it's arguable whether Japan would have surrendered so easily, although it is in your idea's favor.

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

...
Basically...pragmatism, lesser of two evils kind of thing. Ultimately that's where my retrospective support of the atomic bombings comes from, is the evidence that I've dug up that doesn't point to Japan doing much surrendering under "mere" duress of invasion and what they seemed willing to do to prevent such an invasion.

That make it a little clearer, I hope?

Why measure "evil" by number of causalities?