Oh for fucks sake. Does everyone who decries the use of the atmomic bombs in Japan think that the civilians would have been so much happier burning to death in a conventional fire bombing campaign instead?
Look, even if you punch somebody in the face for their own good, you still apologize for the punch afterwards.
Gross oversimplifications like that don’t work when discussing war.
:shrug: Then Rush’s comments are stupid. The US didn’t nuke Japan for its own good. The US nuked Japan because the US wanted to hurt Japan as much as possible - not without good reason, but still, the intentions were in no way benevolent. Yes, Japan was the villain in the Pacific theatre in WWII. Yes, Japan brought its near-destruction upon itself. No, it is not reasonable to expect the Japanese to thank the Americans for nuking them.
I don’t think the Japanese should be thanking anyone, but I also don’t think that America should be apologizing.
I don’t think Rush said that the Japanese should either, just that as it turned out in the long run there was a good outcome for the country as a whole.
Other great “win-win” situations throughout history:
Assasination of Abraham Lincoln. The war was already won, Mrs. Lincoln got to see a play with her loved one right before he expired, and Washington, DC got a great memorial out of it.
Sinking of the Titanic: Shipbuilders learned not to make stupid sales pitches like “the unsinkable ship,” the shipyard workers in Belfast got to go to work building another ship to replace it, and there was that great movie with Leo that would have never been made if it hadn’t sunk.
The Vietnam War: The US learned (until 2003) not to get involved in a land war in Asia, another great memorial in DC, Vietnam was reunited, and John McCain gets to make tearful trips there all the time.
Come on, history is FILLED with win-win situations! Contibute your own!
It was probably better for the civilians as well, because if the U.S. would have invaded Japan, millions would have died. The bombing campaign was leveling that country - two big bombs stopped it all. But had the U.S. not had the nukes, they would have just continued flattening the country.
BTW, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had death tolls roughly on the order of the death toll for the firebombing of Tokyo, yet we don’t have endless debate threads about that.
48 million people, the majority civilians, died in WWII. Of that 48 million, about 0.5% of them died in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If those two bombs helped end the war and prevent the deaths of millions of Japanese civilians and soldiers, it seems reasonable to call it a ‘win-win’.
I think “regrettable necessity” is a better term than “win-win.”
Ravenman
Rather dark humor there … but I must admit pretty funny too.
Just thought I’d mention you forgot to put Andrew Johnson in the “win” category.
Civilian deaths during the Battle of Okinawa estimated between 42,000 and 100,000.
Civilian deaths from the Tokyo fire bombings estimated at 140,000.
Civilian deaths (immediate and long-term) combined in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings estimated at 340,000.
It’s reasonable to assume the invasion of Kyushu which was scheduled for November 1945 would have resulted in at least as many Japanese civilian deaths as the two bombs combined, with no assurance the Japanese would have surrendered even then.
Limbaugh’s a buffoon. But he’s right this time.
And no, I can’t believe I just said that.
[OT]At least until the Radical Republicans turned against him and he was impeached by the House of Representatives.[/OT]
I think that what a lot of you are missing is that “win-win situation” means that there is no downside. But getting an A-bomb dropped on you has a definite downside, even if you can argue that you somehow benefit on balance.
As mentioned above, Limbaugh was definitely flippant. Your term is much more appropriate. I would have made the same decision as Truman did.
Hardly a “win win”. :rolleyes: But the bombs killed far less Japanese civilians than any other option then known. The “blockade” aka 'starve them out" option, while very likely resulting in the least American casualties, would have killed many millions of Japanese (and most of our own POW’s*). Invasion would have killed a likely million Japanese and many Americans. Overall, the Bomb killed the fewest humans of any known option.
Rush is an idiot, IMHO- but even a broken clock is right twice a day! 
*something many forget- most Allied POW’s were on the ragged edge of starvation, so any delay would have resulted in many deaths.
Yeah, but let’s not give him too much credit. It wasn’t an original idea. Lots of people have made this same point before Rush.
Depends on exactly the circumstance, I guess. Instant vaporization is probably better than the seemingly endless anticipation of a fast approaching bayonet and the subsequent slow choking on your own blood.
I’m thinking better than burning to death after a firebomb has hit your extremely flamming house.
Er, flammable house.
No, otherwise we would have nuked Tokyo.
The other alternative - an invasion of mainland Japan - would have cost a half milliion American and a million Japanese lives, by one estimate, and most of the Japanese would have been civilian. Part of the idea of nuking them, as bizarre as it sounds, was to save lives.
No point in the US apologizing, nor for the Japanese to thank us. The Japanese could apologize for starting the war, but it seems a little late for that now.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not sure it was a “win” for the people actually vaporized in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but had there been no A-bomb those cities would have been incinerated by fleets of napalm-wielding bombers, anyway. So it was a tie.
The day BEFORE Nagasaki, Yokohama was essentially erased from the map by conventional bombing. The experience of people caught in napalm raids was - well, there’s really no words to describe it. Firsthand accounts read like a firsthand account of what hell must be like.