The Hiroshima shadows.

[Amarok]

Good book

I like how he gets the Japanese fear of western expansionism . Which is the reason Japan turned to Fascism and Militarism in the first place . As they ultimately feared suffering the same fate as China .

Japanese solution to the fear of western expansionism seems to be to inflict a far more brutal form of expansionism upon their fellow asians than have been typically meted out by the westerners.   Therefore Japanese expansionism is to be excused.  They were merely misunderstood.  

As it happens, most western expansionism were also motivated in part by the fear of other western nation's expansionism.  So perhaps they are just as excusable as Japanese expansionism, so the Japanese have nothing to complain about if they feel threatened by these western expansionism.  They really just misunderstand those westerners whose expansion threatened them.

Sigh I never said it was reasonable nor right I was stating the reason why they expanded you seriously need to stop putting words in my mouth


As for your Japanese war of aggression argument and that's why America cut off japans supplies just no it was a two way incident so no it's more like not feeding an alligator for a fight with another alligator

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The theory that the US might not have bombed Berlin is idiotic.  The US didn't finish building the first bomb until 2 months after Berlin was taken.   Considering the US bombed Dresden into smithereens and killed at least as many people there as in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and clearly to intimidate the Russians, it seems rather unconvincing to say the US would not have nuked Berlin had the bomb been available, if it is judged doing so would do more to intimidate the Russians than to antogonize other Europeans

1. They didn't finish the bomb but they were planning targets ahead of time one of them was Berlin but it was scrapped as a target

2. They had considered it and rejected it as I said .. And from a tactical perspective you could say it's stupid . And yes more were killed in Dreseden once again tactically it would be dumb. but that's what happened apparently they were less Squamish about using conventional bombs .

3. I agree it tactically would have effective but the military thought it was to horrific (as I said they were not so antsy about conventional bombs)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Japan was nuked partly as a demonstration to Russia that the US had nukes and would use them. It was a dick swinging thing to do just before Russian troops would have been used against Japan.

http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/cou/jap...j-sdw.html

I've studied the end game in WWII for decades and haven't found any support for that claim.

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It was a cultural failure.  We did not understand them.  They did not understand us.  John Toland's "The Rising Sun" gives an amazing overview of the multiple fuckups that led to WWII in the Pacific.

Japan wanted total control of East Asia. Before Pearl Harbor they were murdering missionaries, burning churches, and demanding that "foreign" companies doing business in China put a Japanese on their boards and pay Japan for the privilege of doing business there. The Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere was their name for the Empire of Japan, Extended Edition. It wasn't all that hard to understand. 

Toland's a fun read, but not a serious one.

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Some points:

The bombs were considered to be just big explosives. There was no discussion of "fallout" or radiation effects outside the labs. The plan for the invasions of Japan was to drop a bomb on a position that was blocking our advance and send the troops through 30 minutes later. We have pictures of Groves and Oppenheimer at Ground Zero of the Trinity Test Site the day after the test.

We didn't use the bombs to "hurry up and end the war before the Russians got into it." Gen. MacArthur sent at least two demands to Gen. Marshall that the Soviets attack Hokkaido to pull troops away from his beaches.

Also, the bombs were originally intended for use against Germany. Whether or not they would be used against Berlin would have depended on the tactical situation at the time. A more probable target would have been the "mountain redoubt" where Nazi fanatics were rumored to be holed up for a post-war guerilla campaign.

[chimp3]

If we want to compare the Fire Bombing of Dresden , the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to modern day Terrorism I can certainly draw many valid comparisons. Bombings are fucking terror from the sky. Just ask the kids. As far as the aggression of Germany and Japan during the war there is no doubt they needed to be stopped. My thoughts about the strife in the Middle East today are that if we stripped religion out of the equation the political disputes are solvable. So, religion is the aggressor this time.

[Alex K]

@Atlas

So the Germans gassed millions. The allied forces did to Dresden the equivalent of a nuke, only with conventional weapons, the Germans shot ballistic missiles onto civilian targets in England, the US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The list goes on. I think we can agree that none of these things are anything less than horrible. To pick one from the list to accuse the US of terrorism, that's idiotic.

[chimp3]

So the Germans gassed millions. The allied forces did to Dresden the equivalent of a nuke, only with conventional weapons, the Germans shot ballistic missiles onto civilian targets in England, the US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The list goes on. I think we can agree that none of these things are anything less than horrible. To pick one from the list to accuse the US of terrorism, that's idiotic.

I did not mean to single out the U.S.. War is terror.

[Alex K]

So the Germans gassed millions. The allied forces did to Dresden the equivalent of a nuke, only with conventional weapons, the Germans shot ballistic missiles onto civilian targets in England, the US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The list goes on. I think we can agree that none of these things are anything less than horrible. To pick one from the list to accuse the US of terrorism, that's idiotic.

I did not mean to single out the U.S.. War is terror.

I was really addressing the OP! I hadn't even seen your post.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The March (something) firebombing of Tokyo killed more Japanese than either bomb, and almost as many as both combined, IIRC. Ending the war was the mission. The Japanese military government made the civilians a target by spreading war production out of the factories and into civilian homes. They also deemed that everyone between a certain age, male and female, were to be considered military for the defense of the Home Islands.

[chimp3]

I did not mean to single out the U.S.. War is terror.

I was really addressing the OP! I hadn't even seen your post.

OK!

[brewer]

OP: All I can think about is the Simpsons Radiation King.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

To put the bombings in further perspective the "healing" benefits of "radiation" were touted by nostrum peddlers in the US and UK before the war. Radiation effects were never considered as a "force multiplier" by planners.

You can find the minutes of the planning meetings online at the Truman Library.

NB: People say that Truman was never notified about the development of the bomb before he became President. True, but neither was his predecessor in the Vice President job. Truman had been in the VP office only since Jan. 20th. and became president less than three months later.