WWII and Japanese attempt at surrender?

Japan made a concious decision to embark on a path of open warfare with a nation possessing double their population and ten times their industrial capacity. They lost.

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Tantor,

Your piece is very interesting. How about some sources?

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Though I may have chosen other words, on the whole Tantor's remarks are on target. Finding documentation to support Tantor's views is not difficult. There have been a number of authoritative books on the subject over the last sixty years, and there is related material found in the biographies of almost every political and military commander whose authority included the Pacific Theater of Operations. Literally hundreds, if not thousands of articles have been written that support the use of the atomic bomb, it's timing and targeting.

The Military History Department of the US Army published an outstanding anthology (Command Decisions (1956) discussing in detail the rational, background, etc. of every major command decision during WWII. Chapter 19 deals extensively with the decision to to use the atomic bomb and supports Tantor's remarks, though the targeting rational is not touched on in detail.

The targeting decision was left to Gen. Spaatz, who delegated the decision to Gen. LeMay. Hiroshima was chosen after Kyoto was removed from the targeting list as an national treasure to be preserved. Kokura was the primary target for Fat Man, but cloud cover prevented the attack and the secondary target, Nagasaki, was bombed instead.

You might like to read Michael Amrine's, The Great Decision: The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb (1959) and Herbert feis's, The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II (1966). Both of these excellent books are cited in the military History Department of the US Army's authoritative bibliography, A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History (1982)

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gozmo wrote:

Tantor,

Your piece is very interesting. How about some sources?

I've already cited "Truman and the Hiroshima Cult." It's all in there in one nice tight package. This single book is the best education you can get on Hiroshima. After that you can read Tibbets book about the mission which also lays the facts bare.

Tantor

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"Hiroshima in America - A Half Century of Denial" (Robert Jay Lifton & Greg Mitchell) profiles the events and charactors surrounding the decision for the US to drop 2 atomic bombs on Japanese cities. I urge those whom find justification and comfort in the 'official narrative' that the bombs where used to 'end the war and save lives' to pick up a copy.

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The fire-bombing of Tokoyo did far more slaughter than either of the two atomic bombs. More than 60 cities were on LeMay's "hit list," and Robert McNamara relates that LeMay told him that had the US lost the war, they would all have been tried as war criminals. The use of the atomic bombs and its rationale has become a cottage industry for writers who have the canny sense of timing to tell them that conditions are ripe to stir the pot once again.

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Setanta wrote:

The fire-bombing of Tokoyo did far more slaughter than either of the two atomic bombs. More than 60 cities were on LeMay's "hit list," and Robert McNamara relates that LeMay told him that had the US lost the war, they would all have been tried as war criminals. The use of the atomic bombs and its rationale has become a cottage industry for writers who have the canny sense of timing to tell them that conditions are ripe to stir the pot once again.

I think McNamara misinterprets LeMay's quote as an admission of moral culpability. I doubt LeMay had any misgivings that he was doing the right thing, as he was. LeMay specialized in cold assessment of reality. Had the Japanese won, they would indeed have executed LeMay as a war criminal, just as they executed three of the Doolittle bombers as war criminals. That doesn't mean that they were war criminals, but rather that the victors would have the power to declare them so. LeMay's remark was about victor's justice, not morality.

Tantor

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encise wrote:

"Hiroshima in America - A Half Century of Denial" (Robert Jay Lifton & Greg Mitchell) profiles the events and charactors surrounding the decision for the US to drop 2 atomic bombs on Japanese cities. I urge those whom find justification and comfort in the 'official narrative' that the bombs where used to 'end the war and save lives' to pick up a copy.

Why don't you make the argument against the Bomb instead of keeping your argument a mystery? There are lots of liberal propaganda books that argue against America's justified atomic bombing. Citing one more is meaningless. Have you even read the book you cite?

Tantor

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Tantor, yer a piece of work. There were no moral implications in my quote of McNamara--it simply referred to LeMay's realistic assessment of the degree of slaughter they were inflicting on the Japanese. The source is the movie about interviews with McNamara, the title of which escapes me. I find it highly amusing that you take the opportunity to attempt to smear liberals, as though such individuals are the source of some evil conspiracy to condemn the United States. I'm liberal, proud of it, and have no illusions about the atomic bombing incidents. My point above is that in the totality of the bombing of Japan, the atomic attacks represent a rather insignificant part of the slaughter, which was by and large accomplished with incendiary attacks. If you had the wit to understand the last sentence of my post--which i now doubt, given your response--you would have seen that i am ridiculing the publication of books which attempt to make Americans look like monsters because of the use of atomic weapons, liberal though i be.

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Setanta wrote:

Tantor, yer a piece of work. There were no moral implications in my quote of McNamara--it simply referred to LeMay's realistic assessment of the degree of slaughter they were inflicting on the Japanese. The source is the movie about interviews with McNamara, the title of which escapes me. I find it highly amusing that you take the opportunity to attempt to smear liberals, as though such individuals are the source of some evil conspiracy to condemn the United States. I'm liberal, proud of it, and have no illusions about the atomic bombing incidents. My point above is that in the totality of the bombing of Japan, the atomic attacks represent a rather insignificant part of the slaughter, which was by and large accomplished with incendiary attacks. If you had the wit to understand the last sentence of my post--which i now doubt, given your response--you would have seen that i am ridiculing the publication of books which attempt to make Americans look like monsters because of the use of atomic weapons, liberal though i be.

Setanta, I did not say that you thought LeMay was claiming to be in the wrong, as you mistakenly claim, but rather McNamara is interpreting LeMay's remark incorrectly. You are simply the bearer of the quote. I don't know if McNamara is liberal or conservative, so I really have no opportunity to smear liberals here, another mistaken claim by you.

You finally stumble away from your false assumptions into the truth when you correctly point out that the atomic bombings form a small fraction of deaths caused by the US bombing campaign, which in turn are but a small fraction of the deaths caused by Japan in its barbarian war of conquest.

You're a little too eager to take offense, Setanta. Maybe it's time to switch to the decaf, huh?

Tantor

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Tantor wrote:

I don't know if McNamara is liberal or conservative, so I really have no opportunity to smear liberals here, another mistaken claim by you.

However,

In an earlier post, Tantor wrote:

There are lots of liberal propaganda books that argue against America's justified atomic bombing.

The use of "liberal" in the earlier quote was egregious, and is part an parcel of your habit of taking any opportunity possible to paint an issue in dichotomous political terms. As for coffee, i never have any after mid-morning, and that post was made hours after my lunch, let alone my last coffee.

Tantor wrote:

Setanta, I did not say that you thought LeMay was claiming to be in the wrong, as you mistakenly claim, but rather McNamara is interpreting LeMay's remark incorrectly.

But,

In an earlier post, Tantor wrote:

I think McNamara misinterprets LeMay's quote as an admission of moral culpability. I doubt LeMay had any misgivings that he was doing the right thing, as he was.

I recognize that you are interpreting McNamara's remarks in the interview, however, absent context, there is no basis whatsoever for your suggestion that McNamara is making any moral judgment. And the context of the remarks which McNamara made was the extent of damage and slaughter wreaked on Japan by the conventional and incendiary arial bombardment of more than sixty cities in Japan. I mentioned it because it is germaine to a realistic assessment of the entire air campaign against Japan, of which the atomic attacks were a calculated gamble to convince whatever rational powers that were to give up a fight they were obviously going to lose, to spare their own nation. As such, it touches directly upon the false issue of the atomic attacks, because it demonstrates that there was a good deal more going on in the way of direct assault on the home islands than two bombs dropped in August, 1945. Deciding that there was an implicit moral judgment on McNamara's part is an interpretation you chose to make, to support a false assumption on your part that i was being condemnatory toward the United States.

Perhaps you need to lay off the hard drugs.

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Genocide by the USA

Tantor wrote:

encise wrote:
"Hiroshima in America - A Half Century of Denial" (Robert Jay Lifton & Greg Mitchell) profiles the events and charactors surrounding the decision for the US to drop 2 atomic bombs on Japanese cities. I urge those whom find justification and comfort in the 'official narrative' that the bombs where used to 'end the war and save lives' to pick up a copy.

Why don't you make the argument against the Bomb instead of keeping your argument a mystery? There are lots of liberal propaganda books that argue against America's justified atomic bombing. Citing one more is meaningless. Have you even read the book you cite?

Tantor

Tantor,

Yes I have read the book I mentioned. Im not into the habit of recommending books I have not read. If by not accepting the 'official narrative' and wanting to read further into a recent event that was essentially a campaign of murderous intent fueled by political motivation, then I am HAPPY for you to label me as a 'Liberal'.

I will refrain from personal attack, but will assume you where one of the conservative demonstrators lobbying against the decision to show the 'human' effects of this attack at a recent US museum display to commemorate the anniversary of Hiroshima.

Such psychological numbing is explored in the book I mentioned and highlights the inability of many to take into account the HUMAN FACTORS of dropping a bomb on defenceless civilians.

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Re: Genocide by the USA

encise wrote:

Tantor,

Yes I have read the book I mentioned. Im not into the habit of recommending books I have not read. If by not accepting the 'official narrative' and wanting to read further into a recent event that was essentially a campaign of murderous intent fueled by political motivation, then I am HAPPY for you to label me as a 'Liberal'.

I will refrain from personal attack, but will assume you where one of the conservative demonstrators lobbying against the decision to show the 'human' effects of this attack at a recent US museum display to commemorate the anniversary of Hiroshima.

Such psychological numbing is explored in the book I mentioned and highlights the inability of many to take into account the HUMAN FACTORS of dropping a bomb on defenceless civilians.

Sorry to disappoint you, but conservatives don't do demonstrations. We have jobs.

I have no problem with putting all the facts on the table, but showing just the effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is one-sided and calculated to evoke sympathy for the aggressor. To be fair, you need to show the effects of the samurai sword and the Japanese atrocities that prompted the atom bomb.

Hiroshima was not full of defenseless civilians. Hiroshima was a military city and had been for a century, proud of its samurai tradition. It was the headquarters of the Japanese 2nd Army, whose soldiers composed an eighth of the population. When the Bomb dropped, it destroyed nearly 20,000 of those soldiers doing their morning calisthenics on a huge parade field. Much of the rest of the city was employed in the manufacture of military goods to support the Army. Japan had militarized its entire civilian population and armed them, even putting kindergarteners through bayonet drill with bamboo spears. They were to kill an American soldier each before committing suicide. You can not make your civilian population combatants and then claim protection for them as civilians.

It's also worth noting that the Japanese were killing Chinese at the rate of the population of Hiroshima every two weeks. My sympathy is with the Chinese victims of Japanese aggression and I support the atom bombs which stopped that killing. Why is your sympathy with the Japanese aggressors and their barbarian war of conquest?

It might be good for you to explore the psychological numbing it took for the Japanese to behead prisoners for sport and use prisoners for bayonet practice. Far more people died from Japanese sword and bayonet than died from American atom bombs. The samurai sword is the proper object of moral wrath, not the atom bombs which stopped them from being raised.

Tantor

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Quote:

to support a propaganda theme by the Left as part of its campaign against America.

No matter how valid any of your previous or subsequent arguments are, you still lose by default.

OOH! If I don't keep on reading NewsMax and watching FoxNews, the Liberal conspiracy will succeed in its quest to destroy America!!!!

Every insult I fling accross the internet at the pinko commies strengthens the minds of true Patriots against the anti-American swill coming from Micheal Moore and his ilk!!!!

//one-post user