RE: The Nuking of Japan
September 12, 2012 at 11:37 am
(This post was last modified: September 12, 2012 at 12:03 pm by Anomalocaris.)
The truth is the US had only 3 working bombs at the time, one was expended during the test at Almogordo, New Mexico. The other two were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a way these bombs were a bluff because with their use the US had shot our wad for the time being. If 2 bombs weren't enough, the next bomb won't be ready for many month, certainly won't be ready in time to end the war before the anticipated invasion of Japanese home Islands.
So the US had concretely planned to do speed the Japanese along to surrender by using chemical weapons on a massive scale, in defiance of our own treaty obligations, on the Japanese home Islands during fall of 1945.
The upshot is the US was willing to basically go to any length and weather any adverse world reaction in order to bring the war quickly and definitively to an end and not get bogged down in Japan while Soviet Union becomes free to act elsewhere.
In retrospect it seems fortunate Japan surrendered for it saved us from having to use chemical weapons. Otherwise we might be seriously inconvenienced when we want to affect sanctimonious horror at other people's use of "weapon of mass destruction". I mean the brass of those dictators in doing the things we meant to do on a much larger scale ourselves.
BTW, the invasion of Japan was expected to cost US half million military dead, and several million Japanese civilian dead.
So the US had concretely planned to do speed the Japanese along to surrender by using chemical weapons on a massive scale, in defiance of our own treaty obligations, on the Japanese home Islands during fall of 1945.
The upshot is the US was willing to basically go to any length and weather any adverse world reaction in order to bring the war quickly and definitively to an end and not get bogged down in Japan while Soviet Union becomes free to act elsewhere.
In retrospect it seems fortunate Japan surrendered for it saved us from having to use chemical weapons. Otherwise we might be seriously inconvenienced when we want to affect sanctimonious horror at other people's use of "weapon of mass destruction". I mean the brass of those dictators in doing the things we meant to do on a much larger scale ourselves.
BTW, the invasion of Japan was expected to cost US half million military dead, and several million Japanese civilian dead.
