So, what else should we have done?
Was he kind enough to cc the soldiers fighting to the death or the civilians who were trained to fight and/or kill themselves?
A country that would not surrender after the first nuclear weapon was seriously bent on taking everybody down with them to hell. The death and destruction from conventional bombing alone would have killed more civilians. A land war would have multiplied that many times. The US army would not be fighting Japanese soldiers, they would be fighting Japan.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing pretty about war. Truman was faced with a difficult decision and he made the correct one.
I’m curious about this myself. Gonzo’s already condemning the people in 1945 for not having the knowledge of people in 2009, so let’s see what his 2009 knowledge tells him is what the 1945 people should have done instead.
You have yet to prove this is so.
And this means…what? I hate reading about Auschwitz and Joseph Mengele. I hate reading about the Rape of Nanking. I hate reading about Unit 731. I hate reading about
Once again, people have pointed out that conventional bombing killed just as many, if not more. I am not arguing that what happened is not horrid. I am saying that we were right in using the bombs.
I wouldn’t make a very good soldier myself – I’m far too emotional. I’m not saying that there’s no place for ethics in war. HOWEVER, saying, “well, people were KILLED!!!” Sadly, that’s going to happen. The Japanese were ready for it…and were more than willing to accept that, as long as they got what they wanted.
I suggest you DO read the rest of this thread.
Seems pretty clear he thinks we should have just invaded a la D-Day in Europe and to hell with all of the consequences of that.
Well, if there’s to be no atomic bomb, I figure after the Americans suffer their 50,000th casualty in the invasion attempt (the end of the first week, tops, and that’s being wildly generous), the public pressure to firebomb Japan for six months straight becomes irresistible and Japan gets torched to the ground, its culture and population essentially obliterated by purely conventional means.
…ummmmmmm… yay?
The first bomb didn’t get the job done; there’s no question about whether it went too far, as it didn’t go far enough. You can question whether the Nagasaki bomb was excusable or excessive; Hiroshima isn’t really open to the same kind of second-guessing.
That was stupid. Totally misses the debate. Come back with something next time. Perhaps bring pie.
If a D-Day style invasion wasn’t your chosen alternative, what is?
And when come back, bring back viable option for bringing about the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan in an option that would kill fewer civilians than the bomb.
We had do to something, and all the options were unpleasant. We know that the bombs were unpleasant - that’s what war is. Ideally the Japanese would have surrendered after Potsdam, or even after Hiroshima. But that’s a fantasy world that ignores reality. Maybe FDR’s ghost could have defeated Japan on a unicorn, then we wouldn’t have needed those evil bombs either.
Indeed. No atomic bombs. No invasion. What, sit and wait them out? Seal them off forever? 
Sheesh. And I’m the stupid one?? 
Hasn’t he addressed that already?
Of course, actually demonstrating the bomb on Hiroshima wasn’t sufficient, so I don’t know why he thinks demonstrating it on an unpopulated island would have been sufficient. But that’s apparently his argument, no?
I perhaps erroneously thought that gonzomax had accepted the quite reasonable retort, since I saw no counter-argument. But he still argues against the bomb, so there must be some other option, right?
As mentioned before, I was told by a History prof that blowing the top off of Mt. Fuji was seriously considered. The mountain is their spiritual home and visible from a large area. The thinking was if they had gone with that, maybe they could have destroyed their will to fight on. I believe the prof said they finally decided they did not want to do permanent damage to such a potent symbol. Plus they only had a couple of bombs at the time and did not want to waste them, in case they were wrong about the effects of defacing Mt. Fuji.
Wow, I ain’t seen a one-sided beating this bad since that city got nuked… you know the one I mean.
I can’t find a cite online for this, but it might have been a possibility. However, knowing the national character of Japan at the time this may have actually had the reverse effect, enraged those who were not particularly hardline before the event. Bombing cities (even with a really big bomb) was a regular part of warfare, but destroying a literal part of the Japanese nation? I’m not surprised that they didn’t chance it.
TRANSMANIACON Baby, Fortress America!
Then what is your answer as to how the allies should have ended the war?
The problem is that you think we use only the US military as a source. I do not as I consider myself to be more diverse and thus can see that the Japanese were nowhere near close to folding as you claim (without evidence).
In case you did not notice, Japan did not surrender after the first bomb. Heck, it was only because the Emperor decided to override his military and evade a coup attempt that Japan surrendered after Nagasaki.
Yes, that could have been a final consideration, too.