Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

@oralloy,

Thanks for posting that Oralloy.

@babsatamelia,

Truman a-bombed 2 japanese cities, instigated a proxy war in Korea and then initiated the vietnamese (proxy) conflict - Coz war (Any frikkin war) is essential.
Crime? No.
Justifiable profiteering? Yes.
You think the Japanese Warfleet caught the US by surprise?
It's all orchestrated, fella - Has always been.

1 Reply

@mark noble,

It's only a war crime if you lose.

1 Reply

@spooky24,

I agree.

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Harry Truman, of course, did not start the Vietnam war. He just took over French Indochina from the Brits in 1945, at the request of the Brits. He then handed it back to the French at their request. They screwed the pooch big time, and that's when Eisenhower took over.

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@Setanta,

Gulf of Tonkin...?
That wasn't orchestrated - Was it...?
Benghazi, lusitania, ferdinand, 9/11.
yeah, right.

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@mark noble,

What the hell does the Gulf of Tonkin have to do with Harry Truman? What the hell does the murder of Franz-Ferdinand have to do with the United States? Do you allege that the United States was complicit in the sinking of RMS Lusitania? Are you on drugs?

Your blab is always so incoherent, and usually completely fact free.

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@Setanta,

I'm beginning to believe that gunga had a Brit cousin.

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@Setanta,

I 'Know' nothing, Setanta.
But, it's nice to see your response.

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@Lordyaswas,

He's a treat, that's certain . . . and so charming.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

He certainly testiculates as much as gunga, that's for sure.

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@Lordyaswas,

That's totally on the ball.

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@Lordyaswas,

And, as ever - You're apparent.

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@Setanta,

Because 'killing' upward of 290k humans is not the act of a nutjob?
No, lets whack a few million more.
At least the undertakers experienced a 'boom/a-boom' in profits, ey?

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@panzade,

panzade wrote:

Thanks for posting that Oralloy.

You're welcome. Here's a sequel:

"In Historic Step, Obama To Visit Hiroshima Later This Month"

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/10/477466610/in-historic-step-obama-to-visit-hiroshima-later-this-month

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Glennn wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Reality of course is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were military targets, and we were bombing Japan in a desperate attempt to end the reign of terror that they were inflicting on the planet.

Not to horrify you, but that's not true.

It is completely true. Hiroshima was a huge military center containing tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers and holding one of the most important military headquarters in Japan.

Nagasaki was an industrial center with giant weapons factories.

Japan was massacring civilians and committing war crimes on a horrific scale and needed to be stopped somehow.

Glennn wrote:

Not to horrify you, but that's not true. What this tells me is that you haven't even done enough research to realize that

I am one of the world's foremost experts on this topic.

Glennn wrote:

military personnel--including the president--have stated that the bombing was not necessary, and in fact, immoral.

Self-serving statements delivered in hindsight do not change the reality that Japan was inflicting a horror on the world and we were desperate to somehow stop them.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

Self-serving statements delivered in hindsight do not change the reality that Japan was inflicting a horror on the world and we were desperate to somehow stop them.

There was a U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group that was assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan. They produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded:

"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."
_________________________________________________

How is that self-serving?

1 Reply

@Glennn,

Glennn wrote:

How is that self-serving?

After the war there were huge budget cuts hitting every branch of the military. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey was the Air Force attempting to argue that their conventional bombing campaign was the key to winning the war (and therefore budget cuts should not cut into them too deeply).

More important than it being self-serving though, is the fact that the report does not contradict my statement about what US officials were thinking during the war.

The Bombing Survey represents knowledge from after the war. It does not represent knowledge possessed by the US government during the war.

People after the war had clear knowledge of the exact point when Japan surrendered. They were also able to interview Japanese officials and learn exactly what was happening within the Japanese government at any point during the war.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

The Bombing Survey represents knowledge from after the war. It does not represent knowledge possessed by the US government during the war.

Eisenhower was a General and Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces at the time. He was the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for both Europe and Japan.

He said:

"The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

He also said:

"In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’."
_______________________________________________

How is it that you, one of the world's foremost experts on this matter, can claim that all misgivings about dropping the bomb on cities populated by human beings was hindsight? I hope you've learned something here.

And by the way, if I was off topic in the other thread, what does that make your post just before it?

1 Reply

@Glennn,

Glennn wrote:

Eisenhower was a General and Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces at the time. He was the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for both Europe and Japan.

He said:

"The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

He said that in 1963.

Glennn wrote:

He also said:

"In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’."

That is an excerpt from his 1963 book.

As for the conversation from 1945 that he describes, note that Ike only expressed this view to a single person (Stimson).

Ike was spectacularly unconvincing. Stimson essentially called him an idiot.

After the discussion, neither Ike nor Stimson bothered to tell anyone else of the views that Ike had expressed to Stimson -- at least not until Ike talked about it in 1963.

Thus Ike's view was unknown to all but Stimson in 1945. And as I said, Stimson was not impressed.

Even if Ike had been convincing, it was too late to stop the A-bombs (at least the first one). When Ike had this discussion with Stimson the final orders to drop the bombs had already been sent off to the military, and Truman had already departed Potsdam to travel back home. Truman was still at sea when Hiroshima was destroyed.

Glennn wrote:

How is it that you, one of the world's foremost experts on this matter, can claim that all misgivings about dropping the bomb on cities populated by human beings was hindsight?

I acknowledge that Ike's conversation with Stimson was not in hindsight.

But I don't place much importance on the conversation. Stimson was unconvinced to say the least, no one else during the war even knew about the conversation, and it was already too late to stop the bombs at that point.

Glennn wrote:

I hope you've learned something here.

I already know everything about this subject.

Glennn wrote:

And by the way, if I was off topic in the other thread, what does that make your post just before it?

It wasn't your post that was off topic. Discussion of the A-bombings in that other thread would have been off topic. It was polite to move the discussion here instead of derailing the other thread.

2 Replies

Was it a war crime when US nuked Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

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