60 Years Ago Today
Dean
The allied forces, principally the United States, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima 60 years ago today.
Although some hateful people like to portray this as an act of mass murder and racism, in truth it saved countless lives and ended a brutal war.
Interestingly, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law 40 years ago today, marking the last vestige of government-supported racial discrimination in the United States (until "Affirmative Action" programs in our public universities began discriminating against asian, arabic, white, and other kids based on their race, anyway).
It means that if you are under 40 years old, you have never once lived in a United States where the government could discriminate against you based on your skin color. You have never experienced Jim Crow. You have never so much as seen a segregated lunch counter or a "colored" drinking fountain.
December of this year will also mark the 140th anniversary of the final and formal abolition of slavery in the United States.
Related Posts (on one page):
To my knowledge, such an idea was not considered.
It's so nice in retrospect to make such cheap assumptions about what the people 60 years ago "should" have done. It was a war, one of the bloodiest and most costly in history.
If it doesn't go off, no Japanese are the wiser. If it does, well, what a demonstration.
It was a waste of an opportunity and of the first of only three bombs.
They should have thought of this at the time.
You really don't care how many lives that decision saved do you? In fact you haven't given the first thought to that. You're just happy to condemn your own country and its people in retrospect due to armchair retroactive speculation.
Jesus Christ. If it weren't so sad I'd actually be angry.
If concerned about collateral damage from this demonstration, no matter on that account either. We were already firebombing Tokyo. More people died in this attack than the two atomic bomb drops combined. Maybe we could have waited. The firebombing of Dresden was counterproductive (military production went up after the attack).
Yes, we were wrong in the application of military power. I place the blame squarely on Truman and Roosevelt (who also did nothing about the Holocaust).
We did that.
Then the Japanese thought it was an accident and STILL refused to surrender.
So we dropped another one, the second one with warning.
Thus saving over a million lives.
Consider that the mass of civilians were willing to die for the Emperor. The actual sufferring of pain meant little. However, the threat of destruction of the Japanese culture meant everything.
Pan out? As I said, if the bomb didn't explode, so what? We even save a part of the Southwest desert from being irradiated. It's not like we needed to tell them, "Look what I will do". They would have gotten the message when they woke up an hour too early in the AM when the artificial sun rose at 5:00AM.
You must be kidding. The Japanese were well aware that we could drop bombs on target.
You ought to go play with the hatemongers over at <i>Daily Kos</i>. Looks like they're more your speed anyway.
This communication problem would have been solved by my proposal.
Racist America-hater Deignan's proposal would as likely have cost many times as many lives as worked on the gamble he wanted.
Just face it Deignan--you and people like you richly earn your reputation for America-hating. Not to mention for the racism that you so casually manage to evade being properly applied to you.
I am a former MI officer, soon to have a PhD with an emphasis in System Identification. (and Masters in math and ME from a top 10 school--top five or so in my field). Burt, I am a bad typist so maybe I com off porly. Sorry.
Now, you can dismiss me and call me names, that is something they do at DKos and DU (both of which I the priviledge of having been banned--I guess they were too smart for me.)
Do you really want to stick with your assessment?
P.S. My CV is online. Please review it if you think I'm an unpatriotic crank.
Plus, from you, it will probably improve my chances of landing a tenure track job.
Paul, you really hate the US don't you?
For all of your book smarts, that is all the degrees mean, you have no ability to see the big picture and what actually happened, and why it happened the way it did, instead of your fantasy world of what might have been.
That was all out war, with a nation that would not surrerender, unless totally defeated.
The US had the information then necessary to reach my conclusion at that time. I believe they did not due to a lack of leadership. Remember, Truman didn't have a clue about what an A-bomb was when he took office. He sure did not have much awareness of the military-political-intelligence situation. That was his fault.
Sit back and think for a bit. Does my solution impair the ability of the US to win the war? No. It maximizes (intelligently) our ability to win.
Meanwhile, it also would have opened the possibility of having a spare bomb or two to persuade the Soviets that maybe they should stick to the Yalta agreements.
It also maximizes the political effect on the Japanese.
All out war with a nation that would not surrender? But they did. Are you still so sure that genocide was the answer?
"If" and "maybe" are silly words in this case.
We obtained peace. Be happy. My grandfather died near the end of WW2. I'm not an expert on history like yourself, but I do understand how to show respect. Are you calling my grandfather -- many other grandfathers; fathers, sisters, daughters, sisters, brothers, sons, etc -- racists? Did they participate in a genocide or did they engage in a war against fascism?
If I recall, by the way, the Japanese attacked us first. The US had to show Japan we meant serious business. Of course, I don't own a PhD or any type of degree, unless one were to count my Linux certification, so I'm not so book-learned as yerself. ;)
>Sit back and think for a bit. Does my solution impair
>the ability of the US to win the war? No.
>It maximizes (intelligently) our ability to win.
The thing is, you cannot honestly say your solution would have worked. In fact, your solution may have caused more people to die. We just *don't* know.
>Are you still so sure that genocide was the answer?
That's just silly...come on.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=genocide
So yes genocide was the answer. And you are arm chair quarterbacking today with all your Bull* degrees. You have had time to sit back and think, and analyze, and to see what mistakes were made, all of which Truman did not have. He did not, I repeat did not have all the information you have today to question his decisions.
Many in the military had no idea what an A-bomb was at that time.
Yes Japan surrendered when they realized that we were willing to decimate their entire civilization. Until that day became apparent, they thought they could save face, and dictate the terms of surrender and save the empire.
And your statement that we would have had a bomb or two to pursaude the Russians is such crap. No one knew if we had more than 2 bombs at that time. Only after many years was that information discovered.
You are taking information that you have access to today, and reinterperting history, given your own bias.
BTW: Click this link for the definition of genocide.
Yes, firebombing cities and dropping A-bombs on cities is genocidal. You just can't call that sort of murder collateral damage under any sort of just war theory.
If this worked because it had a shock effect, than how is it that a demonstration with the test bomb offshore of the nation's capital would not have had a postitive effect?
I would consider it a slander if someone represented my service as support for genocide. Maybe you should get your grandfather's OK before you put words in his mouth--just in case he thinks war is hell.
BTW, what information am I using that they did not have then?
>on cities is genocidal. You just can't call that
>sort of murder collateral damage under any
>sort of just war theory.
Well, you are the one in college after all so I suppose you may be correct. You call it genocide, I call it "defensive measures."
>Maybe you should get your grandfather's
>OK before you put words in his mouth--just
>in case he thinks war is hell.
I would, but as I said he is dead. He died fighting the evils of fascism. If war is hell, ending the war should be a priority.
We did end the war, yes? If we make silly assumptions then I guess my grandfather would be quite happy -- since the war is over and war is hell.
Besides the fact that Hirohito surrendered after the Nagasaki bombing, causing the Japanese people to welcome their conquerors peacefully and allowing the country to be rebuilt into a real constitutional monarchy that became a first-world country and strategic Western ally in the space of a few decades? Uh, lessee...I can't think of much.
One of the things my older Japan studies professors constantly impressed on us when their younger colleagues criticized pre-1960s Western writing on Japan as "outdated" or "caricaturish" was that they were pioneers. They were studying things about Japanese society that Westerners simply had no prior systematic knowledge of. It's easy now to map which strains in Japanese culture led to the smooth transition through the occupation because that's what actually happened. It seems inevitable.
It didn't seem inevitable in mid-1945. The Japanese were ruthless fighters who were unafraid to undertake suicide missions. Mere months after the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, you seriously think it was the reasonable thing for our strategists to figure that they could end the war by setting off a bomb that made a really big SPLOOOOSH! in the Pacific? "We just imploded 20000 of your civilian mackerel--surrender immediately!" WhatEVER.
If he could have had the war fought smarter, wouldn't he have wanted to do that?
I don't make the presumption that the "greatest generation" was loaded with blood thirsty vengeful people. I think I would be right in saying that Americans are compassionate and generous. We certainly didn't go overboard on the war-crimes trials. Maybe we are a little soft-hearted.
That said, our government was inexcusably short-sighted in its moral conduct of the war. It's hard to fight a World War for four years and totally overlook the systematic murder of millions. It takes a special sort of stupid to miss something of that magnitude.
Remember, the US's greatest force in the world is moral persuassion. It should be safeguarded by a bodyguard of truth-tellers. (The trained liars should attend only to secrets of national security.)
Maybe because you are not reading what I am writing.
Did I say "Don't drop the bomb to force a surrender".
Hmmm, no, can't find it here, not there, what is he saying? ....... Ohhhhhhh
The term is "half-cocked". It is a military analogy.
If the Japanese are willing to die en masse, what makes you think that killing another 210,000 in provincial cities would do anything?
They needed to realize that Japan could be annihilated along with its culture, Emperor, etc. A demonstatration offshore of Toyko would have driven this point home.
We could have provided this demonstration free of charge. Instead, we irradiated the Southwest desert with no Japanese in sight. That was not too bright. Sort of a waste of a bomb.
The only technical consideration is whether we could have loaded the trinity device into a superfortress. I believe that we could have done this. Alternatively, we could have sent it on a submarine for a surface burst. (Releasing it like a mine).
The proper comparison is irradiating desert in the American southwest in secret to providing a demonstration off the shore from the enemy capital.
I think my demonstration would have made a greater impression on the enemy.
Read. Read. Read. Think. Think. Read. Think.
This is not that hard.
But, fine. Let's say the parallel you really wanted to draw from the get-go was between testing the bomb in our own desert and testing it off-shore from Tokyo. Would a detonation within fishing distance have had a bigger effect than a detonation in the American Southwest? Sure. Can't gainsay that point. The issue is whether it would have been a tipping point toward Japanese surrender, and you really haven't argued that convincingly. Whether the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were willing to die for the Emperor wasn't the main consideration; it was whether we could give the strongest possible indication to the leaders of Japan that there was no way they could win and leave enough of an impression on everyone to forestall difficulties during the inevitable occupation.
It seems to me that it would have been more effective to provide a demonstration with the Trinity device, say 25 miles offshore of Tokyo.
It seems to me that it would have been more effective to provide a demonstration with the Trinity device, say 25 miles offshore of Tokyo.
It seems to me that it would have been more effective to provide a demonstration with the Trinity device, say 25 miles offshore of Tokyo.
It seems to me that it would have been more effective to provide a demonstration with the Trinity device, say 25 miles offshore of Tokyo.
I'm not asking you to "buy" it, I'm expecting you to read and understand the plain language of what I am writing.
Look, I have no interest in being a remedial reading instructor or in defending myself against ad hominem attacks by those who think they know what I think but am not writing. I'm pretty sure I know better what I am thinking than you do.
Please e-mail me directly if there is something constructive here that I should respond to. I will no longer be monitoring this thread.
You're an intellectual bully and totally wrong about the events.
You're an intellectual bully and totally wrong about the events.
You're an intellectual bully and totally wrong about the events.
You're an intellectual bully and totally wrong about the events.
Wow. How powerful I feel. I'll get out my red pen next.
And only an idiot shows his cards to the enemy before he even knows what those cards are.
Since Trinity was a test, and thus meant to gather data and learn, it had to take place where our scientists and engineers could observe and learn. That would be even more essential in the case that it had failed to work. (Any good experimental scientist would know this, but System Identification looks a bit removed from experimental sciences.) So in order to test fire Trinity off the coast of Japan, you would have to ship some of your researchers -- folks whose work was of the utmost secrecy -- to the enemy's territory. You would think that a former officer in Military Intelligence would understand how idiotic that is in terms of security.
Of all the idiotic things I have ever heard in regards to Hiroshima, Paul's "test Trinity off the coast of Japan" wins the prize for most idiotic.
Speaking of genocide: Dropping the atomb bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have been genocide only if our intent had been to keep on bombing and wipe out every Japanese city even after they had surrendered. There is no moral equivalence between anything America or England did and what the Nazis did. I have had it with Political Correctness and moral relativism. We were right and our enemies were wrong, and that's the way it still is. Yes, it is that black and white.
The signs of a book smart, dumb person.
We could all go and carry this argument over to his blog!!!
Now, you can dismiss me and call me names, that is something they do at DKos and DU (both of which I the priviledge of having been banned--I guess they were too smart for me.)
Which is proof that two broken clocks can be right at the same time.
Of course, that opinion is based on my world view in the year 2005. It is easy to sit back and take pot shots at decisions made over 50 years ago. Our policies back then were racist (by today's standards) and we didn't think twice that our lives were more valuable than the average Japanese citizen.
For those Christians out there, would Jesus have advocated dropping the bombs? If you answer yes, how can you look yourself in the mirror and call yourself a Christian? It is morally reprehensible to think that anyone would consider those attacks as justified. It's almost sickening to read people defending them.
Here's a bag. Go throw up, because the attacks were defensible and justified, no matter how much you or anyone rants about it.
Alternatives at the time? None less destructive.
Yes the attacks of the Japenese home land were justified. Firebombings, A-bombs, conventional carpet bombing. At that time, it was all out war, the entire nation was envolved in supporting the war effort, on both sides, every factory was involved in producing supplies to keep the war going. Every civilian was working to support the military operations. Citizens of the US could not buy rubber, it was all needed for the war. Steel went to build tanks, and ships, not cars. entire car plants were converted to build tanks, jeeps, and transport trucks.
For anyone who claims that by today standards the war was not justified is not living in reality, but the PC crap world.
Let me take you to the Hague Convention of 1907:
Article 25:
The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited.
Article 26:
The Commander of an attacking force, before commencing a bombardment, except in the case of an assault, should do all he can to warn the authorities.
Article 27:
In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as possible edifices devoted to religion, art, science, and charity, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes.
Now, I don't know whether or not you are a Soldier or not, but THIS SOLDIER takes an oath to defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, and to obey the LAWFUL orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me. It is my duty to disobey UNLAWFUL orders. Hopefully you understand that.
To my knowledge, such an idea was not considered.
Your knowledge is, as I recall, incorrect.
I recently read an essay discussing recent declassified documents from that period which included a detailed analysis of the option to demonstrate the bomb. Unfortunately, I can't find that essay right now.
After serious debate, the unanimous conclusion (joined in by the scientists who had originally argued for the demonstration) was that a demonstration was infeasible and would not achieve the goal of ending the war. This led to a recommendation to use the bomb, which we all know was followed by the President.
I should also point out that the Japanese, in fact, did not believe we could produce another Hiroshima, as is made clear from the records of the meetings of the Supreme War Council in the weeks afterwards. The reason: Little Boy was a uranium bomb, and uranium is hard to isolate, limiting production capacity. Fat Man, on the other hand, was a plutonium bomb, which was much easier to produce. They felt we could not produce enough Little Boy bombs to destroy Japan, but we could produce enough Fat Man bombs.
And even after two bombs, the military quite nearly staged a coup to prevent the surrender decision from being revealed so they could continue fighting. They were prevented by a single loyalist, who subsequently committed suicide from the shame of having betrayed his country.
Given all this, it seems clear that the group tasked with studying the question of a demonstration came to the right conclusion. If the actual deaths of several hundred thousand people and the actual destruction of two cities very nearly did not persuade the Japanese, what would have been different about a demonstration off Tokyo that killed no one and destroyed practically nothing?
Hindsight, as a master, has no mercy, as Paul has very conclusively demonstrated. But Paul even strays beyond hindsight with his accusations of "genocide", which are too absurd to even consider. I interpret his goal to be the repudiation, not of the particular decisions made back then, but of the whole enterprise of difficult decision-making. I leave it to others to contemplate the results of success at that goal.
‘Remember, Truman didn't have a clue about what an A-bomb was when he took office. He sure did not have much awareness of the military-political-
intelligence situation. That was his fault.”
Paul,
To your great benefit revisionist history will do well within the framework of your tenure as a professor. Unfortunately, re-created history serves primarily only one’s political bent rather than actual historical fact. I’m sure you will understand that President Roosevelt was a very ill man during the late years of WW II. The military decisions were under the influence of General George Marshall and others under whom it had
been decided to use the new technology of the ‘bomb’ of the day. Harry Truman did in fact have a clue and as well the decisions during WW II were not unilateral edicts by a solo President but rather a united panel of deciders.
Now you tell us that neither Truman nor Roosevelt did anything about the holocaust.
Can you please inform us what they were obligated to do since Der Fuerher Adolph was in charge at the time ? Send him a telegram ?
Timothy:
Show us a war where the combatants mailed the opponents a copy of the Hague Conventions prior to the shooting. Sorry, we do not understand what you mean by an UNLAWFUL order. According to you we get the impression it's okay to change sides. Can we presume you agreed with Neville Chamberlain ?
I just asked Him and He told me you and He aren't on the same page on the issue.
But, if you really want to get Biblical, the Old Testament has examples of God commanding Israel to wipe out entire nations. Frankly, if a nation caught God's ire, and wouldn't repent of it, He had no problem removing them from the planet. So, it would appear that God doesn't have as large an issue with your definition of "mass murder" you may think. Frankly, I'll defer to Him in this arguement.
Thus making:
And:
Moot. While the example cited above was life in America the same thing was heppening in Japan. Indeed the military was training Japanese civilians to combat American soldiers should an invasion of the Japanese homeland occur.
So, here you have military complexes operating within the heart of civilian homes. I'm sorry but in war American lives are worth more to me. And since Japanese civilians were willing and able to mount a defense against Allied soldiers they then stopped being civilians and became potential gurella fighters.
Additionally:
And tell them what exactly? "We have this nifty bomb, which may or may not work, that may or may not obliterate your city. Please stop shooting at us." A warning or threat has no power unless the one being warned/threatened can properly comprehend what they're being told. The American military barely understood what they had on their hands. How could the Japanese possibly understand. Nevermind the fact, as someone has already mentioned, the even after we dropped the two bombs the Japanese military still didn't want to surrender. A warning would have spared no lives and would have tipped America's hand to an enemy wholly willing to sacrifice the lives of one of thier citizens to ensure victory. There's no rationalizing with someone like that. You can only hope to beat them down so hard they simply cannot fight any longer.
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."
-Matthew 10:34
See, that's almost as ridiculous as your response to me...notice I said ALMOST.
I did notice that you didn't respond to my Old Testament mention of God commanding Israel to wipe out entire nations (civilians too). And my answer toyour Hague Conventions. Instead you could only respond to a single smart-ass sentence amongst two posts answering you seriously. Way to skirt the issue! I'm glad to see you're so firm in your position you can just ignore serious critisism.