In case that’s not clear, the 45,000 subsequent deaths from injury and radiation refers to just Nagasaki.
Estimates of potential Japanese civilian deaths from the requisite pre-invasion bombardments ran higher than any of the atomic bomb casualty figures.
And before anyone gets too upset, no, I don’t think the OP is pro-Axis. However I thought I’d give him a taste of how his hysterical rhetoric felt when applied to him.
**
**
Thank you Neville Chamberlin
Fenris
Fenris,
I’m don’t bleed with the same color as the OP in any way, but let us stay within reason.
[list=a][li] It is not incontestable that the bombs saved Allied lives This does not mean that Truman didn’t think so[/li][li] Knowledge of a) and examination in hindsight of the fact leading to the conclusions that it was in fact senseless in respect to ending the war and saving lives is not the same as accusing America of anything.[/list][/li]
Sparc
Card Carrying Allied supporter who believes the Bombs were tactically and strategically useless in re WWII, but had vital deterring effect during the cold war.
Look, what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were NOT pretty things, okay?
Nuclear weapons are evil.
THAT SAID, at the time, we didn’t have the benefit of the hindsight that we do now. Not to mention, what was the alternative?
I don’t think it was right-as in, a GOOD thing that we did, mind you. I think it was more, a necessary evil. It was a disgusting vile thing-but, again, what was the alternative?
Besides, I believe the US tried to get Japan to surrender after the first one was dropped-(Hiroshima, I think?) They did not.
That is not to say we can’t have a day perhaps honoring the innocent victims. Or a day to say nuclear weapons are disgusting things. BUT…to say that Truman was the devil incarnate, that it was so evil and vile and disgusting and we should never be forgiven…I don’t know…that’s a little, well, too simplistic, no?
Halo13, I’ve worked with Australian Navy personnel in my time in the service. A more gung-ho, professional group would be impossible to find. Great partiers, too.
I think your education would be served well by broadening your circle. Get to know guys (and girls) like this. There may be hope for you yet.
MJilitary personnel are as antiwar as they come, since it’s our asses on the line. But we’re clearheaded enough to know that the peace is kept by our vigilance, not by the wishful thinking of a bunch of sheltered kids at a college somewhere.
Shit I know not where that 'm came from!
How is it that it took a “pink down to her panties” commie* like the ever-delightful Guin to perfectly sum up my hard-liner Republican (but not a psycho) feelings.
:: grovels at Guin’s feet ::
Fenris
Sparc
Does my second post (intended to immediately follow my first, despite the fact that the hamsters wouldn’t let it) clear up my position?
Heh. After all the jumping-down-the-throat I did to you about parody posts, I am hoist by my own petard.
Fenris
HAMISH –
Well (A) I think as a rule it’s foolish to assume that a thread will “degenerate” into something just because IYO it “always degenerates” into it, and (B) you very clearly were not talking about “dozens of [other] Hiroshima threads,” you were very clearly talking about this thread. You said:
Full force in some other thread? C’mon. You jumped the gun and you know it, and I found (and find) it kind of funny, because it of course undermines your attack (must undermine it) when you don’t even bother to wait for your cue before taking the stage to declaim your righteous attack.
Damned.
I was going to stay out of this I said to myself, but I just fucking can’t.
Gobear, Whack-a-Mole, Fenris and Ringo. I understand and even agree with how the OP incenses you, but fercryinoutloud?!?!?
If this was GD I’d be screaming CITE PLEASE! I actually already did scream that at some people in this party in GD regarding this quite recently, but nary a cite did I see.
Shit I don’t care I’ll do it even if it isn’t GD.
Cite me some kind of first hand source that gives that the US saved a gross number of lives by dropping the bombs. Actually show me some kind of official cite that estimates the loss of lives on the US side at higher than the low tens of thousands. CITE PLEASE!
Truman’s own administration concluded that they saved very few lives on any side be they Japanese (duh!), US, Australian, British, Tamil, Soviet or Congolese.
That doesn’t mean that it was the wrong decision, but for fucks sake, are we battling ignorance here or perpetuating it?
CITE PLEASE!.
And Hamish the death toll was not 2 million it was at the 200.000-350.000 level depending on how you count, and who counts.
Sparc
Oops Fenris…
heh heh…
Case in point. I’m being Fenris you’re being Sparc…
Sorry about that.
I’m just posting away, here. Maybe I should follow my own advice and read some as well.
All others: Strike Fenris from previous list and retract the first attack I do.
Another thing to consider is that the Japanese military was seriously considering using poison gas (and biological weapons) to repel a US invasion and it seems likely that the US would have responded in kind. I’m not sure which method of death is preferable (gassing vs. being nuked), but I can sure as hell tell you that US attitudes towards Japan would have been much, much harsher if we had been met on the beaches by a chemical attack. I’m not sure what impact that would have had on our reconstruction of Japan, but it would have been much harder to justify funding this program to the American public if we had incurred large numbers of casualties during the invasion. Getting the war over with quickly was not only in our best interests but also the Japanese’s especially given our post-War reconstruction of their country. Given the context of the situation in which the atomic attacks occured, (which is something most bomb-bashers conveniently forget) Truman really had no other choice. He bluffed–remember we used our entire nuclear stockpile in those 2 attacks–and the Japanese decided to surrender. And that’s the smartest decision they made since they started the whole shebang. In short, yea nuking people sucks and it’s not something you want to make a habit of but sometimes it’s actually in the best interests of both societies to go ahead with it.
No offense taken. Hell, a lot of my panties ARE pink, sooo…
Maybe it’s just that while I hate what happened, the whole war was such a despicable thing, (because Hitler and the rest of the Axis higher ups were complete and utter evil), that you really CAN’T judge now.
Plus-we didn’t know then what we knew now-at least about long term effects.
And I think we at least tried to help after that-didn’t we?
That being said, the School of the Americas is still evil. I’m NOT stepping away from THAT!
OK,
Wabbit added to the list of people I would kindly request Cites from.
A question to the OP–
Do you know any veterans of the Soviet-American War? Of course you don’t. Know why? For better or worse- nuclear proliferation.
This number is at least three-and-a-half times too large, and probably more.
Oh, I don’t know. There were some people in the Middle East who did a little dance of joy on 9/11. I have to imagine that some of those same people would do the Funky Chicken on rollerskates if Washington, DC disappeared under a mushroom cloud tomorrow.
But that’s just silly – nuclear weapons aren’t a defense (bold for emphasis on the word, not to contrast the American and Canadian spellings, btw) against anything. You can’t use them to repel invaders, they have little tactical use . . . the only case in which they could legitimately be described as “a defense” would be if a country has a first-strike capability. Even then, it’s a hollow “defense” at best, since any similarly-armed power is capable of responding at the first sign of launch. And I guarantee that no “First World” power with nuclear capabilities is going to allow newcomers to develop first strike abilities.
People can complain about MAD and detente all they want, but it’s worked. It’s worked for more than half a century, and there’s no reason to assume, absent other evidence, that it won’t continue to work.
OK,
Wabbit added to the list of people I would kindly request Cites from.
Sparc, thanks for the link. I thought this seemed familar.
I have nothing to add except for the conventional “It was better than attempting an amphibous attack” schitk. I’m more of an English history person.
BTW, I am all for nuclear disarmament. I’m just saying that I don’t go so far as to say that Hiroshima was the most evil action in the world. It was evil, but…it was one of those things that you cringe, but you almost had to.
But of course!
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/giangrec.htm
(good overview of the tactical problems involved included projected casualty figures)
http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1997.12.25-1997.12.31/msg00086.html
(good discussion of plans for a retaliatory use of poison gas by the US)