I already said I didn’t object to driving them out of US territories. We could have done that without incinerating babies in Tokyo.
So you have no right to kill anyone else’s 19 year old son to stop a war, correct?
Would you have negotiated for the return of US prisoners? What would you have offered to get on their good side?
Not if he’s a civilian.
I’m sure I could think of something that didn’t involve incinerating babies.
So if your stated policy is to simply ‘drive out’ anyone who invaded you and then unilaterally declare a state of peace to exist, what in hell is the disincentive for them to attack you again, and again, and again… (see: Israel 1956, 1967, 1973).
The problem with your attitude is that it causes war. There are bad people in the world. When they face very few consequences for taking aggressive actions against you, you encourage them to continue being bad.
Had Japan simply been pushed off of the Phillippines, what would have stopped them from simply taking it again once the liberating forces departed? Or from laying siege to those forces?
After all, Pearl Harbor happened precisely because Japan felt that the U.S. would act the way you wanted them to act. Faced with a loss of a major portion of the fleet, the hope was that Japan could, in a series of lightning strikes against various islands expand its sphere of control in the east, and the U.S. would do nothing to stop it. Yamamoto knew better - too bad he didn’t have the emperor’s ear.
Germany invaded Czechoslovakia because he had ample reason to believe that the rest of Europe would simply let him do it. Had a forceful stand been taken at the first sign of German belligerance, perhaps WWII could have been stopped before it escalated into a world conflict.
Sorry, but your policies, even though they may be grounded in a honest desire for peace and moral action, have historically had the opposite effect. Or as the old saying goes, for evil to triumph, all that is required is that good men do nothing.
Had the Japanese empire simply been pushed back out of U.S. territory and left intact, it would have simply built up more forces and attacked elsewhere. And eventually, perhaps they would have had the Bomb, and then we could have had a repeat of Pearl Harbor, except this time with nukes over western cities.
P.S. The Japanese were truly horrible back then. Read up on the rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March.
Evidently you are badly underinformed in terms of what the Japanese Empire did to children in the lands it conquered.
The Allies’ greatest sin was not going to war against Japan much sooner. If we’re playing the “would you kill children/let children be killed” game, I may as well point out that you obviously don’t care about Chinese children. You must be a racist. I mean, that’s the obvious and simplistic view of your position that nothing had to be done after Pearl Harbor.
I can find as many moral problems with your supposedly moral position as you can find with anyone else’s.
How does this paragraph prove your claim that civilian bombing was THE major American route to victory? (You also seem to be giving the United States credit for all Allied bombing, which is of course wrong. For a guy who claims to not be a flag-waver you’re sure prone to forgetting that there were Allies outisde the USA.)
Do you have some objective criteria by which the civilians killed in area bombing were a greater part of Allied victory than the defeat of the Japanese navy and conquest of her possessions in the PAcific, AND Britain/India/Australia/New Zealand defeating the Japanese in southeast Asia, AND the Allied destruction of the German army in France and subsequent drive into Germany, AND the campaigns in Africa and Italy that destroyed Italy’s ability to wage war and drew off many German divisions, AND the Soviet destruction of most of the German Army? Or are you just making stuff up as you go along?
Did you know that probably the single biggest effect of the bombing campign over Germany was not the killing of civilians but the annihilation of most of the German air force? True fact. Did you figure that into your calculations?
Now, do you really still think that area bombing was THE MAIN REASON the United States ended up on the winning side?
Presumably winning a full scale war requires many different strategies, some larger than others. Obviously whether area bombing was the primary route to victory (which it obviously was not and it’s ridiculous to claim it was) or a secondary route, that’s independent of whether or not it’s justified. Dropping propaganda leaflets over France (I have one, it’s really cool - like a little newspaper) was obviously a minor part of the war effort. Does that make it terrorism? “Mon Dieu, Jacques, ze Allies are dropping newspreent on us again! Zut alors! Terroristes!”
I mean, saying that area bombing was the main way the Allies won is just fucking stupid. Let me ask you this; could the Allies have won by focusing their efforts on defeating the Germans and Japanese at arms? Sure; they would have done so eventually, though it might have taken longer and probably would have killed more civilians. Could they have won exclusively through area bombing? Not a chance, Vance. Japan couldn’t even have been reached by bombers without many military victories; Germany, absent the pressure of ground war that absorbed most of its industrial and military effort, could have easily beaten the bombing campaign.
I’m actually closer to your side of the issue, Dio; I think WWII area bombing was morally… well, very questionable. Allied civilians weren’t even all that thrilled about it at the time. But yo’re badly, badly ignorant of a lot of the facts. You don’t seem to know a lot of the fundamental facts about how the war progressed, and you seem more interested in stirring up shit than seriously raising a question of morality.
Sam and RickJay, I respect your points and I realize that it was a more complex decision than I’ve made it sound. However, these days we have no problem saying that deliberately targeting civilians is off the table as a strategy and we decry any entity that does target civilians. It seems to me that the world has not become less complex since WWII and that if we can follow that policy now we could have followed it then.
Having said that, I’m going to retire from this thread (or maybe run away would be more accurate) still convinced that dropping the bomb wasn’t necessary but I won’t pass any moral judgement on anyone (the majority, actually) who thinks otherwise.
If you’re wondering whether you’ve at least made me think, you have.
Incorrect.
In addition to the cites already offered about the attacks on US citizens (both military and civilian) in Hawaii and Phillippine territories, the Japanese seized two islands in the Aleutians, Attu and Kiska, and also bombed Dutch Harbour, closer to Alaska, killing US service personnel and civilians.
http://www.sitnews.org/JuneAllen/060302_forgotten_war.html
Japanese submarines shelled the US mainland in California and Oregon, torpedoed and sunk merchant ships without warning in US coastal waters, even dropped incendiary bombs (to little effect) in Oregon and Washington State on two occasions, using a small sub-launched reconnaisance aircraft.
http://www.thehistorynet.com/wwii/blwestcoastwarzone/
http://www.portorfordlifeboatstation.org/article1.html
They developed and launched the world’s first intercontinental unguided missile, declaring environmental war on North America. Fortunately they did not mate the Fugo balloon bomb (built partly by women and children excused from school for the purpose) with their biological and chemical weapons tested on civilians and POWs in China (including Allied POWs).
http://www.project1947.com/gfb/fugolinks.htm
By taking an Isolationist stance (i.e. “only kicking them off US territory, then quitting,”) all you do is encourage the aggressor to re-arm and try again with a bigger force, or at another time when you are distracted, or busy in another theatre of war. The Japanese military junta would have misinterpreted (perhaps wilfully) such a move as weakness, a disinclination to fight…and they would have bided their time, and struck again.
In my opinion.
You mean like the end of WWI that left many Germans feeling like the Govt. sold them out, so they rearmed and required a complete arse-kicking to de-militarize?
Hitler and other actually believed this crap. I think we learned a lesson from WWI that they needed to be completely beaten.
I said it earlier and I’ll say it again, why didn’t the corrupt and very militaristic Japanese Emperor and High Command surrender once they were beaten back to the home Island? Why fight on? I’ll place the deaths on their souls/Psyches not ours. Those people could have been saved. They started a war and then lost the war and still would not give up. There was no question about needing to convince them to surrender!!!
Darn, I am actually letting this get me angry. I wish we lived in a world were no one wanted war or terror. If you start a war, be prepared for all consequences.
They indeed were. The Japanese launched balloon bobs that killed a family - I think it was in oregon. And, they were working on the same weapon to launch germ warfare onto the USA. As you might know, germ warfare is especillay dangerous to the very young and the very old. Thus our children were endangered by the Japanese. We also had children in Alaska and Hawaii- and some small parts of Alaska were invaded, and Hawaii was a target. Not to mention the Japanese did shell our coast.
Of course- we could have “just quit”. That would have left many thousands of Chinese and Phillipinos under the thumb of the Japanese. But I guess in your mind- if they aren’t white- they aren’t ‘ours’ and then the children don’t count, eh? And you know the kinds of things the Japanese 'special wepons" dudes did to the Chinese.
Of course, if we quit against Germany, they would have killed several million more Jews and Slavs- including children. Don’t they count?
The rockets, missles and other “terror” weapons would have continued to kill British children- but I guess they don’t count either. :dubious: Not to mention that the Nazi’s were working on a rocket (and bombers) that could reach the USA- and their own atomic bomb. True, they were far behind us, but if we “just quit” they woudl have finally gotten it to work- and BOOM- there goes London.
Riiight “just quit.” Only a complete moron would suggest leaving Tojo or Hitler in power.
To clarify a little:
the tragedy is that the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t deserve to be vaporised; any more than the civilians in Dresden, Rotterdam, Warsaw, Coventry, or my mother in Greenock’s “mini-blitz” (she survived, obviously).
They had no voice in Japan’s military junta, or their country’s march to war…but they sure as hell wound up paying the price. Some of the military at the top still wanted to carry on, even after two atomic bombs–they even tried to steal the recording of the Emperor’s “surrender” speech the night before it was broadcast, for crying out loud!
As awful as the bombs were, they allowed the Japanese to surrender to a force that was almost supernatural in its power–perhaps this left a tiny psychological loophole; how can you fight such a weapon?
We should remember those people gratefully. I honestly believe that the stark example of what happened to those two cities did have some slight cautionary effect on the realpolitik of the cold war. Maybe–just maybe–the memory of those irradiated ruins and survivors with skin hanging off gave momentary pause to some of the more hawkish leaders at times of friction in the 50s and 60s.
And, yes, I think that they also–unknowingly, involuntarily–saved many thousands of Japanese and Allied lives in 1946-47. That’s my opinion, and I know that there are many who argue on both sides of the argument of collapse vs fight-to-the finish. I fall firmly on the side that says Operation Olympic would have been the bloodiest operation of the entire war.
from:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/arens/chap4.htm#N_11_
If the destruction of all those people isn’t horrible, then the word has no meaning. But I’d like to think that somehow, their deaths have wrought some good–not according to some plan thought up by generals, but in the way time and history have unfolded.
The main problem with Diogenes the Cynic (and others who take up this position) is that they are time warpers. They are attempting to project their morality, a morality grounded in todays world to a time in the past…as if todays morality is the be all and end all, the peak of human advancement. It just doesn’t work. WWII was a different time with a different code, the US of 1940 was not the US of today and there is no ‘right’ moral code that transends tiem and space. 100 years from now it might be that the moral code of today (including Dio’s) is looked at in horror…or its possible that because of dire circumstance in that time a harsher code is in effect.
I was actually thinking of making a thread on this. I watched a show the other day called The Final Battle on (I think) Discovery International. Basically it went through recently de-classified documents in both the US and Japanese militaries to discuss this entire debate. In that documentation its clear the Japanese were preparing to make a last stand…a last stand that would encompass both the military and civilian sectors. Their battle plan was brutal…to inflict overwhelming casualties on the US to force them to more favorable peace terms…peace terms that would allow the Japanese empire to continue, if in a reduced form. I saw the battle plans for Olympic, and on the show they went over the Japanese preparations…and it would have been a blood bath. The estimates on the show varied (some said a million allied casualties and something on the order of 5 million Japanese civilian/military casualties…the consensus, based on the number of purple hearts ordered for the operation and projections from what happened on Okinawa seemed to come down to around 450,000 allied casualties and 1.5 million Japanese) but it was going to be bloody. The allies plan was to take the lower island and turn it into a giant runway…and then bomb the rest of Japan until we could build up for the next phase…Coronet.
Leaving aside Dio’s complete fantasy of just pushing the Japanese out of former US/Allied territory and then calling the game and saying all was cool, realistically I’d say that over all for both Japan this was about as ‘win/win’ as you could get in a totally fucked up situation. There was no way in hell that the US was going to ever just stop fighting until Japan had surrendered…and no way in hell that Japan was going to surrender despite revisionists who don’t understand the basic fragmentary nature of the Japanese government of the time, nor the grip the militarist had on said government. So…it was going to come down to an invasion. Said invasion was going to be EXTREMELY grim and bloody (we won’t even get into the fact that 1000 allied service men were dieing a day in Japanese POW camps, or the fact that the Japanese unclassified documents clearly showed that if the main island was invaded the Japanese planned to kill them all…something like 150,000 men I believe if memory serves from the show).
-XT
Very true, xtisme.
“One Hundred Million Souls For The Emperor” was not just an empty propaganda slogan.
I can’t help think of all those Japanese women and kids with goddam sharpened bamboo sticks, waiting in spider holes for the US, or British, or Australian, or Canadian troops. Jesus. Vietnam 20 years early.
All this was after the initial beach assault, of course:
Again, from the Federation of American Scientists page:
Innocent kids, if you please, Mr. Hill. Please don’t rock the mythos. 
Wow, I came in here thinking that dropping the atomic bomb was a bad decision, but probably better than invading Japan. Now, thanks to that very spirited and factual rebuttal of Dio’s “Think of the children!” argument, I think it was the best of the options we had and definitely better than invading Japan.
Consider ignorance fought.
Fuck that. I’m still right. I’d rather kill somebody that’s fighting back than incinerate babies any day.
I doubt this civilian stand for the Emperor would have actually panned out anyway. There are usually all sorts of wild ass contingency plans drawn up during wars. That doesn’t mean all those civilians were actually going to go along with it.
You live in a strange world. It would probably be a wonderful place to visit but do you at least blame the Japanese govt as much as ours?
We’re the ones who did the killing.
Um. Have you perhaps reviewed the Okinawa campaign? If thats too far back in history for you have you ever taken a close look at what happened in Vietnam…or perhaps Iraq today? What do you base your statement that the Japanese people wouldn’t go along ‘with it’? Do you have any rational basis for that or is it just because thats how you WANT it to be? Because from what I’ve seen the Japanese people would have grimly done whatever they were told to do when their home islands were invaded…especially since they were pretty throughly indoctrinated with the concept that the ‘white man’ would kill them all. Ever seen footage of Japanese women jumping off cliffs with their children in their arms…or footage of civilians fighting soldiers with farm impliments? Seen the footage of Japanese soldiers, wounded horribly but tieing grenades to their bodies so that when they were wounded they would kill a few more? I doubt you have…or if you have I doubt the reality has sunk in.
I think you are living in a fantasy world on this subject. However its appearent that you are immune to any arguement and will just keep babbling about “incinerate babies”…and the idiotic bald statement that you are ‘right’ over and over again. Victory through repetition I suppose.
-XT