I hate Japan

Spider- I have generally seen used the figure of “five hundred thousand U.S. casualties” when discussing the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland, which doesn’t seem much of a stretch given the one hundred thousand casualties in the invasion of Okinawa.

Given the five hundred thousand included only American casualties, I expect that 1.5 million is a good number for including American and Japanese casualties.

Even if it’s a high estimate- even if five hundred thousand was expected total casualties for both sides- it still greatly outweighs the number of those who died at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And as I said before, the bombing campaign on Tokyo outweighs the casualties from the atomic bomb.

As for the bombing of Nagasaki being unnecessary- as far as the Americans were concerned, the Japanese were on the brink of a coup by hard-liners who would refuse to surrender under any circumstance, and a second bombing would both push the main government in surrender (and they hadn’t surrendered, remember; they were still dithering and hoping to eke out some concessions- if you want to blame anyone, blame them for being willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of their countrymen in the hopes of holding on to a few political points) as well as make the hard-liner option of “no surrender” be seen as the suicide that it was.

If the Japanese government had surrendered after Hiroshima,
Nagasaki would have been spared. Blame their intrasigence, nto the US. You write as if the US had dropped the bomb with no provocation just to pick on the Japanese. We were fighting a war against a determined enemy that had performed atrocities on civilian populations all over Asia. The Japanese military was training the civilian population to fight the Allies in the streets. The bombings were terrible, but the Japanese had to be forced to surrender.

Have you heard of Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Corregidor, Bataan?
WWII was unambiguous: We were the good guys and the Axis powers were the bad guys. You don’t believe me? Ask a Korean,a Chinese, a Filipino, or a Malaysian about how the Japanese treated the locals.

See, that’s where I waiver. To meet our unconditional surrender, they had to get the go ahead from the emperor, who was a deity in his own right as a conduit between the Nippon and heaven. We needed something to make him “bear the unbearable” (I think that was his quote). But at the same time, their air force was decimated, as was their navy. Do you realize how easy a full embargo around Japan would have been for us? Or continued firebombings? Of course, those firebombings, perfected in Europe, effectively eliminated any difference between “civilian” and “soldier,” so it wouldn’t matter if they were being trained as soldiers or not, the US (and everybody at that point) made it clear that an enemy was an enemy. At least thats what their actions showed.
I mean, Japan was beat. It’s just they had to be all pesky and not give up, leaving us with that painful island hopping land war. BUT, if we had provided for a conditional surrender none of that would have been necessary. We could have let them keep the emperor (which we eventually did anyway) or not gone for full occupation. Plus, Truman had the Manhattan project dumped in his lap and assumed that FDR planned to use it. He didn’t really understand it. Also, do you really think we would have dropped the bomb on Germany, if we had it while they were still fighting? Doubtful. War propaganda always showed the Germans as angry and frightening soldiers, but always as humans. The Japanes were always portrayed as rats or monkeys. Ever seen that famous Life magazine picture of the girl gazing at a skull on her desk with the caption “A young girl writes to thank her boyfriend for the thoughtful gift he sent her from the Pacific.”
So for all those (and more) reasons, I flip back and forth on Hiroshima. As far as Nagasaki, I believe a couple days is not long enough to wait to get a surrender after issuing an atomic ultimadum. They weren’t going anywhere. And the militants may have taken over the government, but NOBODY was about to fuck w/ the emperor, and he had the final say.
This has been a big debate for ages, and is we’re not likely to convince each other either way, esp. b/c I’m so wishy washy about my position. There’s a book w/ the entire original text of the planned Smithsonian exhibit out there, I remember reading it after the whole Enola Gay debacle. That had some interesting points too.

I believe it is common practice among “civilized” nations to avoid harming non-combatants. That is how civilians are different. I guess you disagree with this.

I may be wrong, but I also believe it was common practice to hold bombing raids at night. FTR, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at 8:15 am - during rush hour, as it were.

(snip value stuff)

I don’t think it is odd to train non-combatants to protect themselves in times of invasion. Didn’t the US also have some kind of civil defense program (although minus the bamboo)? I don’t think this changes their non-combatant status.

My mother grew up in Japan during WWII (FTR, she had me in her forties - can’t have anyone thinking I’m an old fart!). She, like other Japanese, were taught that Americans were horrible bloodthirsty demons and did not get any information except what the government wanted them to know. Do you know of the extent of control the gov’t had over people? As a mild example, my mother got into trouble when, as an elementary school student, she sang a love song. You see, they were only allowed to sing military songs. I don’t think those poor people forced to wield bamboo spears (!) against soldiers armed with guns are the equivalent of military soldiers and are fair game for bombing.

(snip conventional bomb stuff)

Spider is right. Your numbers are an exaggeration. The “1 million American lives saved from an invasion of Japan” figure was thought up AFTER the war, in order to justify the bombs. Further, the Strategic Bombing Survey conducted in 1946 concluded that the atomic bombs did not significantly shorten the duration of the war. And possibly, other alternatives could have brought the war to an end at roughly the same time - making the terms of surrender conditional (the US allowed the retention of the Emperor anyway!), bringing the Soviets into the war against Japan, etc etc.

I’m not quite sure what to think about the bomb. I believe the alternatives I mentioned could have ended the war just as well. OTOH, I don’t know how Truman could have decided differently. If it became known that he withheld such a superweapon, the American public would have been incensed. However, I still think a demonstration should have been done before dropping on such a large city. I also question the second dropping.

My point is, there ARE justfications to dropping the bomb - but claiming 1.5 million lives or whatever saved is not an accurate one.

BTW, in your figure of 50,000 are you including people dying of cancer after the fact? Are you aware that the bomb survivors and their descendants are still suffering?

Spider said:

Well, part of my point was supposed to be that it’s a fuzzy line between soldier and civilian, and castigating the bombing of H&N as “killing innocent civilians” isn’t the absolutely evil act such a phrase tries to make it sound.

As for continued embargo- consider also the fact of the Soviets. They declared war upon Japan only shortly before the atomic bombings; had we tried an embargo/bombing strategy, the Soviets may have decided to try a full invasion in order to install their own puppet government (and by that time, it was obvious that the Soviet occupied areas of Eastern Europe were not going to be given truly free determination as outlined by Yalta). So part of the equation was the timeliness of the matter- sitting back and waiting for Japanese surrender may have meant turning over Japan to the communists.

True, and that may have been a failing of the Nagasaki bombing- the US being unwilling to accept the continuance of the Emperor and Japanese unwillingness to release it was the intransigence that led to the second bombing. However, I’d point out that at the time, it was felt that Hirohito was as culpable in Japanese aggresion as Tojo- the “marine biologist” myth wouldn’t spring up until practically hand-crafted by MacArthur after the war- and leaving Hirohito in charge of the Japanese government was considered to many tantamount to leaving Hitler in charge of Germany.

Cite? Quite frankly, from my reading of McCullogh’s Truman, and other books I’ve read on World War II, Truman understood the A-bomb in the same way anyone else understood it- it was a really big bomb. What other understanding was there supposed to be? And if so, who had it?

Hmm. Never seen that one.

I do remember the US soldier sitting on his tank in North Africa, with two decaying German soldiers’ heads stacked on it. Or maybe impaled on it- can’t remember for sure.
As for dropping the bomb on Germany- we had originally developed it specifically to drop on Germany before the Germans developed one to drop on us. There is no doubt in my mind that had Germany not surrendered by the time we developed the Bomb, that large sectors around Berlin would be radioactive wastelands today.

What interesting points? In all honesty, I’d like to hear them. From what I recall of reading the text of the Enola Gay exhibit, it avoided contextualizing the issue at all, which is the major fault I see with most debate regarding the bombings of H&N.

Let me expound a bit upon that point, specifically with two complaints.

1.) Having grown up during the arms races and Mutual Assured Destruction projects of the Cold War, the general assumption is that Atomic Weapon = Really, Really Bad Thing. Certainly in this day and age, that’s a true assumption with our H-Bombs and ICBMs.

But I’ve found too many people immediately place the same assumption upon the bombing of H&N. The idea that it was a fundamentally different weapon- maybe one-hundreth as powerful as a hydrogen bomb, and deliverable only by dropping it from a plane- seems to pass right over people’s heads. Instead, the logic goes: Developing bomb means arms race means eventual destruction of the planet; ergo, developing the bomb, and using such an instrument of world destruction on the Japanese, was morally horrible.

2.) This is specific with regards to the Enola Gay exhibit and the Hiroshima memorial (and the Rememberance Day in Japan): There is no context. They do not mention the war. One could read the exhibits and get the impression that the U.S., for no particular reason, decided to develop a weapon of awesome power; and when given the need to test it, decided that the peaceful nation of Japan would make an excellent guinea pig. So, unannounced and unprecipitated, the U.S. sent a bomber over and killed 50,000 people with nothing but a Nelson Muntz-ish “Ha, ha!”

“Yeah, well,” you say, “everyone knows about the war!” Not Japanese school kids. Hell, if you believe the recent surveys, not even American kids know about the war.

Oh, just as a warning to those who wish to debate- I’m highly unlikely to make it back to the board this weekend. So if you wish to continue- and if you do, I do- keep in mind that I’m unlikely to reply until Monday.

But feel free to assume that your brilliant wit and blinding intellect have driven me away from the discussion. Lord knows I say that to myself when no one responds to my statements.

It’s five o’clock here, so I’m going home, but a few things. The soviets came in AFTER the bombs but BEFORE the surrender. The declared war a full month before they planned just to squeeze in there. That doesn’t really mean much, except to revisionist historians who think that the bomb was dropped to intimidate the ruskies (Guy Alperovitz? I don’t remember the chief proponent, I think it was him)

And you’re right about the exhibit. I should have said “I found the book interesting” not that it necessarily had worthwhile points. I still stand by my anti-nagasaki stance, and I’m still unsettled on Hiroshima. I am not necessarily anti-nuke, b/c one way or another they were gonna be developed and better to be at the forefront that bringing up the rear. It’s just the fact remains that the US is the only country to every drop one of those bad boys.
Technology made us develop the bomb, and it WAS designed to be used on the Germans, but I think we woulda waited a hell of a lot longer to drop it. If we had the German Luftwaffe and navy entirely beat and their army trapped in an area the size of Japan, we never would have dropped the bomb. I really believe that.

Nekochan, a demonstration was impossible, as we only had two of the things. Plus, do you really believe the Emperor would have given in w/out the real boom of one of his cities getting incinerated? There’s clearly room for argument there, but fact is we only had two, so had to make them count if we were going to use them.

I’m had this debate several times, and its interesting how it always can be emotional and informed. I hate to run out on it, but its a five o’clock world when the whistle blows, no one owns a piece of my time." Have a good weekend all. Except eggo, you dumb fuck.

The obvious retort - demonstrate with the first; if it doesn’t work, drop the second on a city. Also, I am not convinced that they couldn’t build more than the two they had.

The Emperor did not have the final authority to surrender - the Cabinet did. Anyway, who can tell what the Emperor would have done otherwise? It is pure speculation to state that he wouldn’t have surrendered unless a city was bombed.

Anyway, to be continued next week.

I hate to squish a good historical debate but maybe this should be continued in a GD thread.

Looks like eggo’s a gonna be a no-show, anyways.

I was afraid of that. I hate to see such good flaming potential slip out of the Pit.

KK: You’re right. Japanese isn’t a good cursing language.
grem: Too bad our pal eggo is more like chickeno.

It’s been a rough day, so I’ve kind of skimmed past the last few posts, forgive me if I didn’t get all the salient points. As one history professor has lectured, the second bomb that was dropped was the H-bomb and not the A-bomb. Or vice versa - the difference being that the second was about ten times more powerful than the first, being roughly 100 megatons instead of 10.

The technology behind the second bomb was in more doubt than the first - the lecture goes - and therefore there was a rush to try it out before the opportunity past (read: before Japan could get the opportunity to surrender, and everyone knew a surrender was inevitable). Now the obvious argument is “why not just test after the war?” To be honest, I have no answer to this, as the professor just kept going, and I was frantically scribbling notes to try and keep up. So here’s the argument that the second bombing was a science experiment, and therefore inexcusable.

As for the “a civilian who can fight is worthy of horrible non-conventional death” argument, here’s a secondhand paraphrase from a friend of mine in Army ROTC. “The reason other nations are afraid to invade us is, because of the second amendment, everybody’s armed.” And let’s not forget that great line from ID4, telling Los Angeles residents to stop shooting at the flying saucers…

Americans, as a general class, are armed and ready to fight. Not all of us, obviously, but many. Does that mean we should get nuked if a war breaks out? Personally, I would feel safer with the idea that the various conventions against harming civilians meant something. Nuclear weapons, IMHO, have no place in a conventional war, and never did.

Guys! HEY!

You are letting a real FUCKO like eggo get you fighting with each other. Which is what he probably wanted. Chill out.

KKB:

The technology for H bombs hadn’t been developed yet. What you are misremembering is that the Hiroshima bomb was a uranium bomb, the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb. I don’t have a source for what the yields are, but I believe the Nagasaki bomb was more powerful…not 10 times as powerful, but more powerful. There must be some info out there in cyberspace…

Ah, you’re right. I just remembered that they were two different bombs and slapped the wrong labels on 'em (a dangerous job, if you think about it). I’d have to dig up my notes, but I do stand by the 10 and 100 megaton figures (which could, I’ll admit, be wrong; the prof seemed just this side of senility - he was nice, mind, just a little…drifty)…

Guys? Folks? Assorted high-minded Dopers?

The OP wasn’t about the historical atrocities or “gotcha” debates. Not saying those points aren’t worthy of discussion, and there aren’t cogent arguments on both (all) sides.

I’m punching back into this discussion solely to express a distaste for bigotry. Forensic debates about cause, effect and relative guilt leaves me cold. (You will wait in vain for my presence in GD; it’s too much like knitting w/ housing insulation: itchy, finicking and frustrating.)

Dragging the OP forcibly back from intelligent debate, may we agree that collective condemnation of a people and culture is wrong? We’ve wandered around bees, xenophobia, chauvinism, religious/political underpinnings…but is it so outrageous to apply in practice that most people do the best they can, no matter the language/society, etc. they grow from?

I’ll leave debate to those better suited to it, but maintain that hating a group–any group–isn’t just wrong, it’s stupid.

Yeah, so all of this is obvious and banal. Reasons and debates are easy (at least others make it look that way). But shoving groups of people into neatly labelled boxes is Ignorant.

Huffing, but leaving now,
Veb

Thanks for the reminder.

eggo, you’re a kusotare. Ask one of your many Japanese friends to translate it for you.

5 of the best exports from Japan:

  1. women’s wrestling
  2. judo
  3. Lum
  4. Final Fantasy
  5. Toshiro Mifune

The worst export: Pokemon, the card collecting/electronic multi-animal fighting game.

The answer to the question of who would you kill to save the life of an American, or any allied soldier, is a simple, but not a pleasant one. You destroy your enemies will to fight until they are incapable of resistance or they surrender. You do so in the quickest amount of time possible and with the least amount of lives lost on your side as possible. If that means killing each and every one of the enemy, including civilians, so as to save one life on your side so be it. I would also feel sad about having to choose if that old women would be the one to die. After all she may be a famous poet. Her work sings the praises of her country and is read every day to the workers in an amunitions factory. The workers are inspired by her poetry to work a little harder and produce an extra box of bullets every day. That box of bullets is used to slow an attack of allied soldiers for a crucial 30 seconds that causes one more allied death who may just have been your grandfather. Is she not at least somewhat responsible for that person being killed?

While I agree that the majority of civilians, and soldiers for that matter, may be misinformed about the reasons for a war that their country is fighting that doesn’t mean that you should sacrifice the lives of your fellow citizens due to their ignorance or their inability to prevent or stop the war.

Having been in the Army (1PPCLI 1980-83, a Canadian battalion for all you down south)I have had to think about what is more important in a war. To make sure that the enemy is given the benefit of the doubt as to whether they are culpable in the perpetration of the war, or that your buddy in the foxhole next to you makes it home in one piece. Another simple answer. I have heard the number of 1.5 million casulties being lost in a possible invasion of the Japan main islands. Even if it was 1/10th of that it doesn’t matter as those numbers are meaningless. What is important is that single individual person standing next to you. How many of your family and friends would you sacrifice to save those of the enemy? That is what Truman had to decide when he made his decision.

Please understand that I have nothing against Japan, or the Japanese people. Iron Chef is also a favorite of mine (hey, remember the one Japanese battle when the challenger had about 50-100 supporters standing all in the cooking area and Chairman Kaga calls for Iron Chef Morimoto. He rises into the stadium alone in the best tradition of the Seven Samurai and Yojimbo(sp), sent chills up my spine). I am planning a trip there in the fall and I admire what the best of their culture has to offer. I also think the OP of this thread is an idiot. But if I had been alive during the war and someone had given me a button that would have prevented all the deaths of Koreans, Chinese, Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, and the countless others, with the catch that the entire Japanese nation was obliterated. I would have pressed it with no hesitation.

Side note (just feeling contrary now): I wonder if all this sympathy for the fact of the bomb being dropped on H&N would be as loud if the Japanese fleet had been completely successful at Pearl Harbor and the Yamato had sat off select cities on the west coast and shelled at will? Just a thought that occurs at 3:42am when I should have been asleep long ago and not reading and posting on this damn BB.

No no no pleeeeease let me, let me!! Please?? :smiley:

Okay, let that be that. This thread should die. Adios.

In reference to the ‘nuke’ comments. In the war, we had a decision to make, invade Japan and face a few million fanatical people willing to take as many Americans as possible with them as they died and expend the lives of hundreds of thousands of our men and women or drop the bomb.

I don’t think that the decision makers went and looked at photographs of Japanese people, wildlife, pets and places before reaching their conclusion. However, they were aware of the great cost in American lives, resources and finances if they pursued a regular ground and air war. Plus the lives of the allies helping us, like the Australians, Canadians and British.

The results in a basic war would probably have been the same for Japan, only with many more people killed.

The bombs were dropped.

The Japanese today are not like the Japanese of WW2, however their own government has kept many of the atrocities the Japanese military committed upon ‘enemies’ from them and it is known that the Japanese civilians were deliberately lied to about the ‘savagery’ of the American soldiers should they set foot on Japanese soil.

That being said, I must say that I also dislike the Japanese cartoons on the cartoon channel, but I also hated Speed Racer when it first appeared years ago. I consider the cartoons cheap, stupid, lame, and in the case of Pokimon, annoying. However, we need to direct our anger at the American buyers who prefer to buy these cheap things instead of better made ones.

Well, then again after having watched Ren and Stimpy, those drooling Superbabies, Powerpuff Girls and a few other American products, I wonder if the Japanese stuff might not be the lesser of two evils.

When did they find it acceptable to have cartoon characters spit, drool, slobber icky stuff, spray sweat and assorted fluids and look as gross as possible?

I, personally, find Japanese woman attractive, however I also find their regimented Iron Chef cooking program ludicrous. Like the Iron Chef himself with his big hair at the beginning advertisements ‘eats’ food with that fast, Kung-Fu jerk and looks ‘tough.’ I’m not real happy about how they take live sea food and rip it apart to cook it – and there seems to be an oriental lack of empathy for the pain lesser creatures suffer.

The Japanese people are very polite and nice, but I dislike the often ritualistic way of doing business with them.

However, if not for the Japanese dumping cars over here, our American car companies would still be foisting off defective, inefficient, gas guzzling, clunkers on us. Besides, American businessmen import the Japanese stuff here. I mean, the Japanese don’t just fly over and bomb us with Toyota’s, Suzuki’s, Pokimon toys and Dragonball Z cartoons. (I’m not real sure about Speed Racer though. I figure they loaded that into buzz bombs and shot them over here because they couldn’t stand it over there either.)