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G-7 Leaders At Hiroshima To Urge More Visits to Nuclear Bombsites (voanews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Sunday leaders from the G-7 countries gathered in Hiroshima Sunday, a gesture which the Japanese government hopes will send a message of peace and nuclear nonproliferation. The seven world leaders will first honor the dead at Hiroshima Peace Park and visit an atomic bomb museum, which the Associated Press calls "a dream come true for many surviving victims, who have for decades campaigned to bring leaders of nuclear states to Hiroshima to see the damage." In addition, Japan hopes that the world leaders will also issue a "Hiroshima Declaration," which reportedly will call for more transparency about stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but also more visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by both world leaders and young people.
71 years and they still haven't haven't fixed the place?
What about just listening to the song "Forever Young" by German Cold-War-era supergroup Alphaville instead?
I'd love to visit the Nevada Test Site but cannot catch the reservation window. Come on Obama, listen to these folks and allow more visitors!.
Sunday leaders? Who leads for the rest of the week?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
Get over yourself.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not at all remarkable in terms of destruction. The Allies leveled the whole of Germany and Japan during WWII. If you only fixate on two cities, then you are belittling the entire rest of the war.
Also, you are belittling the Japanese. They are not a nation to be trivialized and that's exactly what you doing when you try to claim that we could do anything short of everything we could.
Typical "White Man's Burden" BS.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima will forever live on as America's shame.
Easy for you to say, 70 years on, not having lived during that time or having faced the ruthless Japs who were giving little quarter in their attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
How about all the other Japanese War Crimes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Further, the irony is that the firebombings of Tokyo killed as many people as the nukes did. Where are the protests of that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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Finally, would invading have been better?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. To the present date, total combined American military casualties of the seventy years following the end of World War IIâ"including the Korean and Vietnam Warsâ"have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there remained 120,000 Purple Heart medals in stock. The existing surplus allowed combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to soldiers wounded in the field."
We are STILL handing out WWII Purple Hearts to this day because we ended up not having to invade. If the Japs didn't want to get nuked, perhaps they shouldn't have started a war of aggression.
The Military G-7 Leaders At Hiroshima To Urge More Visits to Nuclear Bombsites
And in other news, American military leaders urge more visits to Pearl Harbor.
(And Dachau)
Since America pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty causing the Russians to pull out of SALT-II, it's all talk and no action. Nuclear disarmament is as dead as it was in the 1970's.
where atomic weapons weren't used, there is no nation of Japan, just the mass graves of thousands of allied soldiers, millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians (most of whom died of disease and starvation).
Nothing grows there because of the defoliants that were used. The Japanese are extinct.
Still the whales and dolphins are a lot better off than in our timeline.
Yep, that's the best excuse and probably a valid one. They were ready to die till the last man. Nukes were new so lets test it. It was a perfect condition for entering a new era. It's sad that hundreds of thousands of civilians must have died for it. I know both city had military industry and ports.
Does it matter how you kill people, or how efficiently, surely it is the number of people killed that is most relevant? Ideology killed far more people than technology ever did. Total dead in WWII, about 70 million, number of people killed by communism in the following decades, about 60 million.
Who knew that Putin reads Slashdot?
They spent decades telling people that nuclear weapons make places uninhabitable for centuries, and thus scaring many people into supporting a push to disarm the west (they never made a serious effort in China or Russia to push for disarmament).
If too many idiots who have been so indoctrinated, and who normally only watch comedy shows and fiction shows paying little attention to the real world, are exposed to modern Hiroshima and Nagasaki on TV then they might start asking questions - like how these places could be thriving metros only 70 years after being nuked, and why they were told such a thing was impossible. These places were rebuilt decades ago and would not be what they are today had they only just now been rebuilt and re-occupied.
I am absolutely NOT saying that nuclear bombs are good, or that the damage of an atomic bomb is the same as from a hydrogen bomb, or any other such nonsense. What I AM saying is that the very existence of these modern cities destroys a bunch of the dishonest propaganda that has been used in the West over the past few decades, and the people whose politics both used that propaganda and to some degree depends on that propaganda ought to thing seriously before drawing too much attention to these cities as they are today rather than to the much-more useful images of them from 70 years ago. Nuclear weapons are certainly powerful and certainly have many undesirable effects, but they were not responsible for most of the industrial-scale death of WWII which was largely performed with rather mundane weapons, and the Deaths in those two Japanese cities, while appalling, probably saved millions of lives on BOTH sides by eliminating an allied ground invasion of Japan which the Allies estimated would cost a million allied lives and even more Japanese lives. Indeed, had Japan surrendered after Hiroshima, Nagasaki would have been spared and the world would now only have one example of a nuked city.
> ...that has used nuclear weapons of mass destruction on civilians. Nagasaki and Hiroshima will forever live on as America's shame.
I agree. And I have thought about that since I long ago.
The present events are like a light amid a storm; they honor the victims and bring a little peace to our hearts.
> Attempts to justify the mass murder as "ending the war" are pathetic. As all scholars know, the bombs did nothing of the sort. It was the entry of the Soviets into the war and the threat of an invasion of the Northern islands by the Red Army that convinced the Japanese leadership to finally surrender. Of course, actual events are often at odds with the Hollywood version of history the Americans are so fond of creating.
They're in denial: just see the answers to your post. Lots of references to Pearl Harbor (a military target with much less victims) and German concentration camps (like if one evil could justify another).
Of course, the Japanese have had their share of guilt, mainly related to nearby countries like Korea and China. This also is starting to be addressed since that remarkable apology by Japan, but now it's up for the latter two countries (and also others, perhaps) to seek some kind of closure and stronger ties with the modern Japan that would make everyone forget about past crimes.
Same thing about the USA. We need more courageous people like you to admit the problem (I myself am not from the US) to construct a better future so that other start to see the USA as a partner and not a bully.
New here? There's at least a few members of his propaganda force that post here. Usually on directly Russian-related stories, but they leak into the other occasionally.
You are pathetic. The Soviet army helped to end the war in Europe and did nothing for the war in Asia. Which is why there was Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan did have plenty of opportunity to surrender before Hiroshima and even Nagasaki, but never did. The Japanese ministery of war was running a total war until the Emperor discovered it and decided given Hiroshima and Nagasaki to surrender.
Achille Talon
Hop!
1. Japan itself convinced the US to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. When US troops fought the Japanese from island to island on the approach to the big island, they encountered waves of fanatical suicide attacks on land, and from the air. American soldiers were shocked to encounter large numbers of Japanese civilian women who killed their children and then killed themselves in front of the Americans rather than simply surrendering and being given food and water. Japanese sailors at sea who'd been aboard ships that were sunk would frequently swim away from US sailors who were trying to pull them from the water (a centuries' old international naval traditions of plucking enemies from the sea, everyone sailor's true adversary), often choosing to drown themselves. The imperial leadership of Japan had convinced its population that Americans were barbarians who would treat them so badly that death was preferable. This was evil propaganda intended to convince the people to sacrifice themselves to protect their emperor-god from the disgrace of surrender.
2. Japan itself brought-on Nagasaki. After Hiroshima, the US told the imperial Japanese government to surrender or face more, and the imperial Japanese government chose not to surrender. The allies at the time were demanding "unconditional surrender" and when they Japanese, AFTER Nagasaki still refused to unconditionally surrender and instead asked to be allowed to preserve their emperor, the allies compromised and allowed that condition - but the action proved the imperial govt would have been willing to get nuked some more to preserve the moron in the palace. The Japanese negotiations were NOT focused on the Japanese people, who would have been saved BEFORE Hiroshima had the emperor held any concern for his citizens and surrendered THEN.
3. NO American president could have possibly sent American men to invade Japan and die by the hundreds of thousands and then later have been exposed to have had a weapon he could have dropped from one plane with no American casualties at all and won the war. Such a president would have been forcibly removed from office, and tried and executed for treason. This was a WORLD WAR. Millions of people were dead and maimed.
I am one of those Americans who is glad the bomb was developed AND used. I Had family who fought and probably would have died had the bombs not been used, and who rejects the silly out-of-context moralizing by people who have no experience with war and are too young to know anything about REAL war (as opposed to the phone mini-wars we now pretend to wage).
Have gnu, will travel.
Fucking japs had it coming.
Japan did have plenty of opportunity to surrender before Hiroshima and even Nagasaki, but never did.
But not for lack of trying. The Japs attempted a surrender before the nukes.
Nagasaki is famous for crucifying christians, sometimes hundreds a month; still waiting for the declaration of apology.
The Koreans and Chinese might have a different insight on "mass murder".
The Japanese proposed conditional surrender terms - some of which would have left the military leaders free, or ever still in power. There was no way in HELL that was going to happen. Unconditional surrender was all we were going to accept, especially after we saw how WWI's terrible peace led directly to WWII in Europe.
Reference required.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Since apparently the eventual plan was to drop bombs as part of the invasion of operations Olympic and Coronet to soften up the Japanese. It was my understanding one of the reasons to use them for real was to figure out how far in front of the invasion to drop them so they didn't take out the troops. Oh, and they had one more ready for the end of August and then the US was REALLY going to ramp up productions. (Something like 20-30 nukes by the end of 45.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The Imperial Japanese government, in league with NAZI Germany, was waging total war against the US, using American POWs as test subjects in biological and chemical weapons tests, working British POWs to death, EATING allied POWs, etc. and as Germany collapsed, Hitler sent a U-Boot to Japan with plans for NAZI jets and rockets and a supply of uranium to assist the Japanese nuclear bomb development program. Japan was meant to be Hitler's revenge from the grave. The Americans captured the Japan-bound U-Boot and transferred the fissionable material to the Manhattan project. Google: U-234
Nuclear bombs are bad, we got it. However, there were several attacks on cities with a similar level of destruction. The only difference was that in a couple of cases, one giant bomb was used, but in other cases, thousands of tons of bombs were dropped. Same result, anyway, a bunch of people died. This kind of thing happens when whole nations are at war with each other.
"Easy for you to say, 70 years on"
Yes, it's quite easy for him to say, since scholars and even the USA Government already agreed on that being the case.
"Of course, the Japanese have had their share of guilt" This simple statement demonstrates mind blowing ignorance. And the US would like to partner with other countries to make a better future but so far there has been no country worth partnering with. The worlds idea of partnering with the US includes making the US pick up the check when the costs are tallied up. The supposed partners do little more than hold the US coats when it comes to military actions. These partners welcome US military bases in their countries knowing if they get attacked they can rely on US soldiers serving as a tripwire thus guaranteeing a massive US response. The US owes no one an apology for using nuclear weapons. On the contrary Japan should be thankful that the US gave them back their country. The US worldwide military basing network was a remnant of WW2. At the end of WW2 there was not a single country who had the ability to make sure the fighting would not start up again. Europe was in ruins. Russia sustained enormous damage and although they were able to defeat the Germans they were in no position to project their power globally. The US was not and is not perfect but post-WW2 the US did provide enough security to prevent full blown chaos. The Marshall plan helped Europe recover and the US paid for the restoration of the Japanese while they administered the country. As a thought experiment lets pretend that the US withdraws all their military from around the world and voids all the various mutual defense treaties. Then the US declares they will only take military actions if their core interests are threatened. If this scenario happened what do you think the world would look like?
Why bring the people to the bomb sites, when you can bring the bomb sites (future ones) to the people. Let's nuke'em all!
If only a bombing site were closer to me. Perhaps we could drop some more bombs so that more people can witness the destructive power they hold. That way people won't have to travel all the way to Japan.
This is stupid, IMHO, and sounds like a means to guilt people into visiting Japan and spend some money there.
I made a trip to Germany some years ago to visit a friend stationed there while in the US Army. We took a look at some old castles, churches, drank some German beer and ate some German food. We also saw Hitler's "eagles nest", the remains of the Berlin wall, a memorial to the Jews killed, and a concentration camp museum. A memorable experience but not near as memorable as seeing films on the concentration camps, or Youtube videos of talks on the subject, or just listening to my grandparents talk about what World War II meant to them. There are ways to relate the horrors of war to people besides a viewing of where it happened. I admit that we should not destroy these sites, or prevent people from visiting them, but visiting the sites is not the only way to understand what happened there.
What is also lost is how "mutually assured destruction" may have kept the Cold War from becoming a one that burned at a million degrees over Manhattan.
I think that the USA should keep it's nuclear weapons. Even if we never use them again in anger I do believe that their mere presence keeps us safer than if we got rid of them.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Well, I'd characterize it as "The Soviet army ended the war in Europe, and we helped". No slight against the US and other allies, as we pretty much defeated Japan on our own as well, even though we prioritized the war in Europe.
There were *many* reasons for dropping atomic weapons on Japan. I think people stumble a bit when they point to specific events as the "reason", but I'd imagine the answer, like many complex things in life, was made up of a variety of motivations:
* Americans were becoming war-weary, but anything less than total victory would have been seen as a slap in the face to those who fought.
* The Japanese were defending their home territory fanatically, and projections for losses of life on *both* sides were horrendous.
* Russia was planning to invade with their vast manpower and disregard for casualties, and the US feared it would have potentially occupied large portions of Japan, turning it into a communist puppet state like with Eastern Europe.
* Japan seemed unwilling to concede to unconditional surrender, even in the face of certain military defeat, instead adopting a strategy of inflicting massive casualties against invaders to force more favorable terms.
* Many in the US wanted to test nuclear weapons on live targets to learn their destructive potential
* US leaders / military wanted to demonstrate the might of the those weapons to the Soviets and the world at large as a warning against future actions against our interests
* The American people would likely have demanded an impeachment of a President who didn't use the weapons at his disposal to win the war.
It's hard to say how these factors all weighed into the decision and in what proportions. Only Truman would really know that.
Ultimately, though, there's an argument to be made that, whatever forced the Japanese hand into timely surrender ultimately saved many thousands of allied soldiers lives as well as saving the lives of hundreds of thousands or even *millions* of Japanese from the horror and suffering of a protracted land campaign, or mass starvation inflicted by blockades and isolation, as some have argued for (starvation was already becoming a problem). We could also argue that Japan is far better off today having been forced to completely surrender and accept the efforts by the US to help rebuild Japan into a modern liberal democracy.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Given that the nuclear powers have decided that Iran should have nuclear weapons ASAP, the Japanese notion that world leaders should visit the site of nuclear attacks will come much quicker than they might have dreamed!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No actual problems left so lets go back and wallow in the old ones. The direct result of the bombs, the surrender, the subsequent governance and unwavering economic and military allied status with the US is that Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis worth hundreds of billions and populated by 1.17 million healthy, safe Japanese. But lets set all of that aside and haunt the remnants of a 70 year old war so we can tsk tsk at the US.
Pathetic.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Idiot. Stalin could have landed 250,000 Red Army troops in Japan within a week
Right. Because the Soviet Navy had oh so much experience with seaborne assaults on heavily defended beaches.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
They're in denial: just see the answers to your post. Lots of references to Pearl Harbor (a military target with much less victims) and German concentration camps (like if one evil could justify another).
You are the *only* reply which mentions Pearl Harbor and German concentration camps. This is a really out there straw man which completely disregards what was actually said.
It was the entry of the Soviets into the war and the threat of an invasion of the Northern islands by the Red Army that convinced the Japanese leadership to finally surrender.
The Japanese had plenty of time to surrender unconditionally before a Soviet or US invasion. They didn't.
Fun fact: the US military was going full-on for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. The atom bomb was top-secret, remember? Casualty estimates were huge for both sides. The Japanese had a defense plan, and it was a good one. They had correctly predicted what the Americans were going to do. It would have been a bloodbath. When the Japanese surrendered it was a huge relief to both sides.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
in history to be in a position to take over the world (intact industrial military infrastructure, energy reserves, unmolested populous and don't forget the capacity to make 30 nuclear bombs a day) and yet did not. At the time, the US could have easily taken over the entire planet. I'm pretty sure Japan or Germany would not have had any reservations about doing so. No country was even remotely in a position to challenge or even resist the US, yet the the US did nothing.
The US governmentt never stated that officially, as for scholars... Let them spend some time in a foxhole.
Did your history teacher get to touch you for sharing that little secret?
Tailhook writes:
So by your logic, if some demented evil country pulverized American cities with nuclear bombs, that would be entirely fine and excusable because the US would be prosperous a few decades later?
You need to watch where your reasoning leads you, because you're clearly insane and have no understanding of human suffering.
Yes, it's quite easy for him to say, since scholars and even the USA Government already agreed on that being the case.
No they haven't... The US Government has NEVER said anything remotely close to that...
And you can find scholars on both sides of the issue, you'll never get that group to agree on this sort of thing...
The US governmentt never stated that officially, as for scholars... Let them spend some time in a foxhole.
Amen to that... too many "smart people" have ideas and opinions on things they have only read about...
A more useful exercise is to interview and ask the US soldiers who fought on Iwo Jima and Okinawa and were facing having to invade Japan itself if they thought it was a good idea.
The government of Japan and the "chosen nation" government of USA cooperated in the atomic bombing of H. and N. Both of them were happy with the result. That's because the aim of those A-bombings was to entirely eliminate christianity from Japan. The nukes hit the two centres of christian religion in Japan, one catholic and one protestant.
Christianity was instantly reduced to a mere thousandths of a percentile or just a rounding error, even though until August 1945, christianity was a small, but measurable minority in Japan that was highly respected, due to their association with knowledge and modernity of the western world. Christians of european origin introduced medicine, sports, rigorous science and engineering to Japan and local convertees remained at the forefront of japanese modernization of hardware, culture and thought.
Obviouly, the shinto-buddhist elite in Japan didn't like the christian ideas or the rare white immigrants or the vast majority of ethnic japanese christian convertees. The "chosen nation" government of USA also didn't like christians, since their tribe has been against followers of Jesus for over 1900 years, so the perfect conspiracy was created. Both sides were happy with the result of the A-bombs that fell.
Had christianity remained strong and respected in post-WW2 Japan, today there would be much less problem with near-zero birth rates, wide-spread self-confinement (hikikomori), tentacular schoolgirl porn and other deviant forms of behaviour. The strong moral guideline of christianity, which was a strong voice even in its small but measurable minoroty position, is sorely missing from Japan to this day. Locals cannot differentiate between good and evil, as that notion is missing from the shame-based worldview of shintoism.
Considering the japanese elite was so happy with the Ch-eraser nuking of H. and N., it is no wonder the memorial events are so low-profile in both cities. The majority shinto-buddhist japanese population has been silently educated that it was essentially a great thing those alien and non-conformal christian cities were levelled.
how petty and small-minded many Americans are, and how they love to smear Hiroshima in the face of the Japanese, 70 years on. I think that one day, it will be you who will rightfully get old shit rubbed in your own face.
You people are idiots.
here you go...debunked:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-atomic-bomb/2015/07/31/32dbc15c-3620-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html
Why was the US under any obligation to take the Japanese wishes into account?
They started a war, behaved abominably during it, and lost it. I don't see why people are claiming they were owed anything.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You are a total moron, moron.
Here, educate yourself you useless fool.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-atomic-bomb/2015/07/31/32dbc15c-3620-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html
* Japan seemed unwilling to concede to unconditional surrender, even in the face of certain military defeat, instead adopting a strategy of inflicting massive casualties against invaders to force more favorable terms.
Correct. There's evidence that they were willing to surrender, but they had guarantees they wanted and the US demanded an unconditional surrender. I don't think it's hard to understand why they would have been unwilling to do an unconditional surrender after all the propaganda they heard about how evil American soldiers were. Even after 2 atomic bombs got dropped, it took the emperor himself to force the military to do an unconditional surrender. There were still plenty of people int he military who wanted to fight on.
Not to digress but by at least by January 1945 if not a few months earlier both Himmler and Goring were trying separately to secretly negotiate a surrender to the non-Soviet allies that would have allowed that guy to run Germany in a post WWII order. The US refused, telling both of them that they had to go to trial for war crimes at the end of the war. I think it's worth questioning whether the desire for revenge on one guy (whichever offer they took, the Allies could have demanded the other guy go to trial) was worth spending 4 more months of fighting and all those lives lost on all sides just to ensure that those guys went to a war crimes trial. In fact, Himmler killed himself with a cyanide pill shortly after his identity was discovered when he was in a POW camp and as we know Goring had a cyanide pill smuggled to him hours before his execution so so much for the idea of bringing them justice.
"The US governmentt never stated that officially"
"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."
U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Volume 2 - Japan's Struggle to End the War, pg. 13
http://www.wwiiarchives.net/se...
"The US Government has NEVER said anything remotely close to that"
"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."
U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Volume 2 - Japan's Struggle to End the War, pg. 13
http://www.wwiiarchives.net/se...
Now you probably will say that the "U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey is not The US Government", or something like that (it was "only" the result of the mandate from the Secretary of War pursuant to a directive from President Roosvelt). Well, whatever.
I think it's worth questioning whether the desire for revenge on one guy (whichever offer they took, the Allies could have demanded the other guy go to trial) was worth spending 4 more months of fighting and all those lives lost on all sides just to ensure that those guys went to a war crimes trial.
Why do you think it's only about revenge? The likely outcome here would be that the one that survived would quickly be deposed. The real problem is what happens in a couple of decades when Germany potentially decides to make a go of it again? It's worth noting that the current route has resulted in no third world war for seventy years and no one currently looking to start that war either.
Just remember, surrender was a really complicated question for Japan. Even after the nukes were dropped and the government agreed to surrender, there was a revolt that nearly toppled the government to try to keep the war going. Were it not for the Emperor's direct order, it's likely that the coup would have succeed and the war continued. If you find that even after multiple atomic bombs the Japanese would consider fighting on, read the accounts of what happened at Okinawa and you will understand that the invasion of Japan would have had far, far more civilian casualties than were lost in the atomic bombs. Strangely enough, they were actually the merciful and life preserving way to end the war.
That's a pretty lame "debunking". If a tiny little article with some uncited assertions is enough to convince you, you may have well just linked to a tweet that said, "nuh uh... debunked".
Yep, that's the best excuse and probably a valid one. They were ready to die till the last man.
So your fix was genocide of the Japanese? The concept of fighting to the last man, with America and now Russia, both completely tired of the bullshit, knowing they would have to kill every last one of the Japanese. Who were willing to die under those conditions.
A war of genocide was something they could envision. A war where one plane flies overhead, releases one bomb, and you are gone along with everyone else in the city - you can't even fight that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
today there would be much less problem with near-zero birth rates
Heh. Yeah, they could look like India instead as a high birth rate on limited landmass requires building vertically to house all of the population.
"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."
Where's Steve Garvey? Survey says?.......But they missed the most important part.
They actually had to surrender. Sweet Jeebus on a roto rooter, that part is critical.
Of course Japan would have surrendered. In a couple months after Russia and America reduced their country to rubble. And if Berlin is any example, the Russians would have treated the emperor to the same fate as old Adolph.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Now you probably will say that the "U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey is not The US Government", or something like that (it was "only" the result of the mandate from the Secretary of War pursuant to a directive from President Roosvelt). Well, whatever.
All you have to do is believe the survey respondants. A local television station has "surveys" too.
If you believe the results, all americans believe that children should be issued sidearms at birth, and should be armed in school, that the bill of rights needs suspended, and all manner of idiotic stuff.
Nope, all that those folk had to do was actually surrender. And of course, I can't know, but My guess is that if we nuced them on January 1, 1946, the survey would have shown that they were planning on surrendering on January 31st 1946.
The only time that a surrender takes place is the time it takes place.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I wonder, were the leaders of Israel, India and Pakistan present, together with the midget nut from North Korea? They have nukes too, you know...
Also the surrender was for "Japan." The puppet governments in conquered territory were "independent nations."
"Where's Steve Garvey? Survey says?"
Nice "True Scotsman".
-The Government never said that.
-Yes, it did, under the auspices of the Secretary of War.
-Oh, well, but, but... it doesn't count!
as those first nuclear bombs were exploding just partly. They are not even close to modern nuclear bombs, which are much more damaging.
After such a visit a politician who does not have a technical background may think that it is survivable, and that there could be even PR ceremonies and visits afterwards. What is not true at all.
"Where's Steve Garvey? Survey says?"
Nice "True Scotsman".
-The Government never said that. -Yes, it did, under the auspices of the Secretary of War.
Gosh - I'd love ot hear just how that is a "No True Scotsman" argument Teach me, Turbistrado.
-Oh, well, but, but... it doesn't count!
Coulda shoulda woulda
Perhaps I might be swayed if the US had in it's possession, an instrument of surrender from the Japanese government or emperor, yet decided to nuke those two cities. Now there would be some smoking gun evidence. to support the concept that we just really wanted to nuke some place, not as an action of war, but apparently as something fun to do during a lazy summer day.
Because otherwise, it is people who we were fighting against, probably still in shock at just how much destruction took place, trying to rationalize a reason that we should not have done it. And I place the "We were really going to surrender later, but you bombed us, then we surrendered earlier, but you didn't have to bomb us earlier becuse we would have surrendered later." as just that.
And in the end, the way for Japan to completely avoid the issue was quite simple, don't you think?
Unless you are in the extreme whacko camp of believing the Pearl Harbor attacks having been engineered by FDR. But then we're done conversing.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The leftist use of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to try to convince the poorly educated portion of the voting publics in the Western nations to support policies and politicians who supported nuclear disarmament had nothing whatsoever to do with a poorly-designed, poorly-built, poorly-operated, civilian nuclear power plant that had NO CONTAINMENT BUILDING melting down and then exploding. It also had nothing to do with one spy being killed with Polonium in London.
and again, the anti-nuke activists infest Western nations, but never made any significant effort to convince the people of any Communist nation to disarm and/or de-nuclearize. They are too often like the morons with the doomsday clock, or the Rosenbergs, - working only to undermine the West. Even now with Russia in violation of the curently-existing nuclear treaties and actually deploying new ICBM and new warhead designs, and with Russia now in violation of the number of nuclear warheads they are allowed to have, the response from the leftists who pretend to oppose all nukes is.... {crickets}.... because at their core they are Marxists and they have no problem with the world's worst Marxists being armed to the teeth. Hell, these leftist activists are fine with ANYBODY having nukes except the countries with representative governments and free market economics.
Only one country has behaved so deplorably that they had nuclear weapons dropped on them.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Seeking an armistice is not surrender. Per the Potsdam agreements, there was only one option for Japan, German, and Italy. They were not ready to take that option and hoped to make it painful enough to get be granted some accords and have a better position after the war.
Does nobody read any of the many, many books on this? Why would you guys attempt to revise it.
The angry Russians also had a great deal to do with the surrender. Those who claim the bombs had nothing to do with the surrender are idiots. Those who claim that they surrendered because of the bombs are also idiots. Amazingly enough, it takes quite a bit to get some nations to surrender - usually more than one reason. Another reason was their rapidly dwindling stockpile of resources and inability to get more shipped in as there was now a giant US Navy in the way.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were remarkable in terms of destruction. There was only one air raid that killed more people (the April firebombing of Tokyo), and few comparable in the extent and thoroughness of destruction.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Let's assume that everything known in this document was known in August of 1945 and there was 100% agreement that if the war continued, the Japanese would surrender somewhere between November 1 and December 1. Some people seem to be suggesting that President Truman should have looked his citizens in the face after years of war and said, "I could end this war this week, but it would cost somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 Japanese lives, mostly civilian. So I'm not going to do that. Instead, we're going to fight on for another 3-4 months and pay whatever costs that brings with it because the surrender of the Japanese is inevitable anyway." That does not seem to me to be an easy thing to do or even the right thing to do, given his responsibilities as President. At some point, he's responsible for his people and the Japanese leadership is responsible for its people.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
That survey was, as far as I can tell, incorrect in that conclusion. Having read fairly extensively on the matter, it's not really possible to say when, or under what circumstances, the Japanese would have surrendered.
After being very thoroughly defeated militarily and economically, having had most of their larger cities devastated by fire-bombing, and facing a collapse of the economy and mass famine, the Japanese didn't move to surrender until after the Nagasaki bombing. At that time, some high-ranking Japanese pulled a maneuver of questionable constitutionality at best, getting the Emperor to order a surrender.
After the decision was made, nobody knew if War Minister Anami was going to allow it to happen. In fact, he did issue orders for the surrender of the Japanese Army before killing himself in the old samurai manner. Several groups attacked in Tokyo, attempting to stop the surrender. There's no obvious reason why they could not have succeeded, by killing some of the Liaison Council and freeing the Emperor from his defeat-minded advisers (just because the Emperor theoretically had supreme power didn't mean a group couldn't capture and use him).
I know that Japan surrendered after the second nuke, and I know how. I have absolutely no confidence in Japanese surrender after any other conditions.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
At that time, the Japanese government had four conditions for a surrender: the Emperor was not to be harmed in any way, there was to be no occupation of Japan (so the current Japanese government would presumably have retained power), the Japanese would pull back their overseas troops on their own schedule, and the Japanese would conduct their own war crime trials. There were high Japanese officials who wanted less, but the government as a whole could agree on nothing less.
These were not acceptable to the Allies, and likely would have resulted in more civilian deaths than the nukes caused.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Soviet invasion of the Kuriles islands was not going at all well, and they were saved only by the overall surrender. The Soviet landing on Sakhalin was saved by the fact that the Red Army had strong forces in the north half of the island. The Soviets were not at all adept in amphibious operations.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Let's assume that everything known in this document was known in August of 1945"
If we assume it to be right, the rest of your argument is moot: "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"
No invasion means no Americans killed by the thousands. In fact, the argument from the USSBS is twofold: on one hand, air dominance was the key; on the other, it could have been done with lower enemy civilian casualties out of the lessons learned on the European theater, so it also meant less Japanese deaths too.
Still the key point (on this thread) stays: no, the atomic bombs were not needed to end the Pacific war without a massive carnage from a land invasion.
Right, if we assume that, then everybody knows that the war is over without atomic bombs and without an invasion. That assumption seems wrong, given that planning for the invasion had been going on for months, so the idea that the choice at the time was between the atomic bombs and this great alternative to the ground invasion isn't quite right, but let's assume it is. So now we're talking about 3-4 months of efficiently run war driving us to the foregone conclusion.
From the looks of the report, the plan was to continue bombing cities and civilian infrastructure as Japan was helpless to stop it. After 3-4 months, a combination of direct deaths from bombing, physical displacement, malnutrition and disease would cause them to give up. That certainly sounds like it would work. I have not read the full report, but the summary report you quote paints a grim picture of what that would look like. It may well have saved lives (we were only killing people at an average of 22,000 people a month in the previous 9 months, and that was frontloaded because they had gotten better at not dying immediately when we bombed their cities), but I think it's optimistic to see continued strategic bombing as a sunny scenario. It would be interesting to see an estimate of Japanese lives lost in that scenario and compare the two.
So I'm left with the unsurprising conclusion that with the benefit of hindsight, the bombs weren't necessary or optimal, but neither were they the worst of the possible outcomes. That sounds like most big wartime decisions. The question I prefer to ask is whether they were a reasonable choice, and given the plans at the time, they certainly seem to have been. As for who is more responsible for those deaths, the Japanese leadership surely new perfectly well in July of 1945 what the writers of that report knew in June of 1946, and still they chose to go forward in the face of a lost war that would achieve nothing but more civilian death and suffering. Some people seem to be selling the idea that the US killing them somewhat faster than they expected to be killed makes the US entirely responsible. I'm not buying that.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
"Some people seem to be selling the idea that the US killing them somewhat faster than they expected to be killed makes the US entirely responsible. I'm not buying that."
Neither do I. For the most part, I agree with your reasoning (to which it can be added that, if the bombs were dropped for the Russians, only in Japanese territory, which I find quite likely, it may well mean that the A-bombing in Japan was critical to avoid a global nuclear war some two decades later).
But that's beyond the point here, since it "just" was "the A-Bombs were basically unavoidable" usually followed by "...and we, Americans, shouldn't feel bad for opening that pandora's box" that conforms the vast majority of USA's public opinion, almost without any debate which, given the *publicly* avaliable information, I find simply astonishing.
I can't find anything to disagree with there. It seems impossible to make the argument that the bombs were unavoidable given the state of the war. My understanding is that Admiral Yamamoto knew going into Pearl Harbor that on industrial output alone, Japan couldn't win a full scale war against the US, and the goal was to get far enough out ahead early on to secure a favorable negotiating position at the end of the war and hold on to key strategic territories. I don't see how we go from "foregone conclusion" at the beginning of the war to, "this was our only choice" at the end of the war after the enemy's war machine was beaten into the ground.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
younger post-war generations of Japanese. History is important, particularly so we can avoid repeating it. People like you need to learn to separate discussions of historical events decades ago from presumptions of "microaggressions" and violations of "safe spaces". One can discuss what long-dead military leaders serving a now-dead leader who held himself up as a God did, without any presumption that the grandchildren of those men have any guilt over anything. It's similarly absurd to blame young Germans today for the Holocaust even as we must all preserve the memory of that event - just as no young American is to blame for bombing Hiroshima or Nagasaki and it's silly to expect them to apologize for it.
The US and Japan were friendly trading partners for decades before WWII. We had no natural reason to hate each other and the large number of cherry trees in DC are there as a gift from Japan to the US in that pre-war era of friendship. In Japan, there is a similar remnant of that era of goodwill: baseball. The Japanese embraced America's national pass time.
Sadly, it was the imperial government of Japan which decided to go on a rampage across the Pacific gobbling-up neighbors like Korea and China and savagely mistreating those people that led the US to put sanctions on its old friend. The US was trying to negotiate a peaceful arrangement with its friend Japan in early December 1941 when the Emperor and his men chose to deal with the issue by trying to eliminate the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. The fact that Admiral Yamamoto had attended college in the US during that peaceful pre-war era meant that he well understood the American people and what the attack he was ordered to make would result in. Unfortunately, his nation's leaders did not listen to his warning that he could give them a short term victory but that the blowback would be severe. The fight between the imperial government of Japan and the US was a tradgedy of history, but it does not mean permanent emnity between our peoples. American military personnel and Japanese military personnel fought each other as they were ordered to, and certain individual survivors were physically and psychologically scarred by it, but as a general rule the people on both sides were able to rapidly re-learn to get along post-war and our two nations have been friends for a total of well over a century with WWII being a 4-year long abnormality. The Japanese are still playing baseball and Washington never uprooted its cherry trees. I was at an event years ago with 'Pappy" Boyington (a famous WWII Marine aviator) and he was with one of the former Japanese pilots he'd flown against in the war. They had flown to the event together in a private plane and seemed to be getting along quite well.
Today, when Japan complains about US bases, or when Americans complain about trade, it's really just people in each county complaining that they think their leaders negotiated worse deals than they should have, rather than outright national or ethnic hatred. When Trump complains about Japan, you will note that he generally does it as part of an attack on the competence of OUR government while complementing their government and people for having been smarter in their negotiations and he has said he'd be fine with them having nukes (NOT something one would say of an enemy). Arguments between the US and Japan are more like sibling rivalry than actual consequential fights.