The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

It's the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombing so here's a timely article from Salon.com

quote:

Here we are, 70 years after the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I�m wondering if we�ve come even one step closer to a moral reckoning with our status as the world�s only country to use atomic weapons to slaughter human beings. Will an American president ever offer a formal apology? Will our country ever regret the dropping of �Little Boy� and �Fat Man,� those two bombs that burned hotter than the sun? Will it absorb the way they instantly vaporized thousands of victims, incinerated tens of thousands more, and created unimaginably powerful shockwaves and firestorms that ravaged everything for miles beyond ground zero? Will it finally come to grips with the �black rain� that spread radiation and killed even more people � slowly and painfully � leading in the end to a death toll for the two cities conservatively estimated at more than 250,000?

Given the last seven decades of perpetual militarization and nuclear �modernization� in this country, the answer may seem like an obvious no. Still, as a historian, I�ve been trying to dig a little deeper into our lack of national contrition. As I have, an odd fragment of Americana kept coming to mind, a line from the popular 1970 tearjerker Love Story: �Love,� says the female lead when her boyfriend begins to apologize, �means never having to say you�re sorry.� It has to be one of the dumbest definitions ever to lodge in American memory, since real love often requires the strength to apologize and make amends.

It does, however, apply remarkably well to the way many Americans think about that broader form of love we call patriotism. With rare exceptions, like the 1988 congressional act that apologized to and compensated the Japanese-American victims of World War II internment, when it comes to the brute exercise of power, true patriotism has above all meant never having to say you�re sorry. The very politicians who criticize other countries for not owning up to their wrong-doing regularly insist that we should never apologize for anything. In 1988, for example, after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf killing all 290 passengers (including 66 children), Vice President George H.W. Bush, then running for president, proclaimed, �I will never apologize for the United States. Ever. I don�t care what the facts are.�

It turns out, however, that Bush�s version of American remorselessness isn�t quite enough. After all, Americans prefer to view their country as peace-loving, despite having been at war constantly since 1941. This means they need more than denials and non-apologies. They need persuasive stories and explanations (however full of distortions and omissions). The tale developed to justify the bombings that led to a world in which the threat of human extinction has been a daily reality may be the most successful legitimizing narrative in our history. Seventy years later, it�s still deeply embedded in public memory and school textbooks, despite an ever-growing pile of evidence that contradicts it. Perhaps it�s time, so many decades into the age of apocalyptic peril, to review the American apologia for nuclear weapons � the argument in their defense � that ensured we would never have to say we�re sorry.

The Hiroshima Apologia

On August 9, 1945, President Harry Truman delivered a radio address from the White House. �The world will note,� he said, �that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.� He did not mention that a second atomic bomb had already been dropped on Nagasaki.

Truman understood, of course, that if Hiroshima was a �military base,� then so was Seattle; that the vast majority of its residents were civilians; and that perhaps 100,000 of them had already been killed. Indeed, he knew that Hiroshima was chosen not for its military significance but because it was one of only a handful of Japanese cities that had not already been firebombed and largely obliterated by American air power. U.S. officials, in fact, were intent on using the first atomic bombs to create maximum terror and destruction. They also wanted to measure their new weapon�s power and so selected the �virgin targets� of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In July 1945, Secretary of War Henry Stimson informed Truman of his fear that, given all the firebombing of Japanese cities, there might not be a target left on which the atomic bomb could �show its strength� to the fullest. According to Stimson�s diary, Truman �laughed and said he understood.�

The president soon dropped the �military base� justification. After all, despite Washington�s effort to censor the most graphic images of atomic annihilation coming out of Hiroshima, the world quickly grasped that the U.S. had destroyed an entire city in a single blow with massive loss of life. So the president focused instead on an apologia that would work for at least the next seven decades. Its core arguments appeared in that same August 9th speech. �We have used [the atomic bomb] against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor,� he said, �against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.�

By 1945, most Americans didn�t care that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not committed Japan�s war crimes. American wartime culture had for years drawn on a long history of �yellow peril� racism to paint the Japanese not just as inhuman, but as subhuman. As Truman put it in his diary, it was a country full of �savages� � �ruthless, merciless, and fanatic� people so loyal to the emperor that every man, woman, and child would fight to the bitter end. In these years, magazines routinely depicted Japanese as monkeys, apes, insects, and vermin. Given such a foe, so went the prevailing view, there were no true �civilians� and nothing short of near extermination, or at least a powerful demonstration of America�s willingness to proceed down that path, could ever force their surrender. As Admiral William �Bull� Halsey said in a 1944 press conference, �The only good Jap is a Jap who�s been dead six months.�

In the years after World War II, the most virulent expressions of race hatred diminished, but not the widespread idea that the atomic bombs had been required to end the war, eliminating the need to invade the Japanese home islands where, it was confidently claimed, tooth-and-nail combat would cause enormous losses on both sides. The deadliest weapon in history, the one that opened the path to future Armageddon, had therefore saved lives. That was the stripped down mantra that provided the broadest and most enduring support for the introduction of nuclear warfare. By the time Truman, in retirement, published his memoir in 1955, he was ready to claim with some specificity that an invasion of Japan would have killed half-a-million Americans and at least as many Japanese.

Over the years, the ever-increasing number of lives those two A-bombs �saved� became a kind of sacred numerology. By 1991, for instance, President George H.W. Bush, praising Truman for his �tough, calculating decision,� claimed that those bombs had �spared millions of American lives.� By then, an atomic massacre had long been transformed into a mercy killing that prevented far greater suffering and slaughter.

Truman went to his grave insisting that he never had a single regret or a moment�s doubt about his decision. Certainly, in the key weeks leading up to August 6, 1945, the record offers no evidence that he gave serious consideration to any alternative.

�Revisionists� Were Present at the Creation

Twenty years ago, the Smithsonian�s National Air and Space Museum planned an ambitious exhibit to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. At its center was to be an extraordinary artifact � the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress used to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. But the curators and historical consultants wanted something more than yet another triumphal celebration of American military science and technology. Instead, they sought to assemble a thought-provoking portrayal of the bomb�s development, the debates about its use, and its long-term consequences. The museum sought to include some evidence challenging the persistent claim that it was dropped simply to end the war and �save lives.�

For starters, visitors would have learned that some of America�s best-known World War II military commanders opposed using atomic weaponry. In fact, six of the seven five-star generals and admirals of that time believed that there was no reason to use them, that the Japanese were already defeated, knew it, and were likely to surrender before any American invasion could be launched. Several, like Admiral William Leahy and General Dwight Eisenhower, also had moral objections to the weapon. Leahy considered the atomic bombing of Japan �barbarous� and a violation of �every Christian ethic I have ever heard of and all of the known laws of war.�

Truman did not seriously consult with military commanders who had objections to using the bomb. He did, however, ask a panel of military experts to offer an estimate of how many Americans might be killed if the United States launched the two major invasions of the Japanese home islands scheduled for November 1, 1945 and March 1, 1946. Their figure: 40,000 � far below the half-million he would cite after the war. Even this estimate was based on the dubious assumption that Japan could continue to feed, fuel, and arm its troops with the U.S. in almost complete control of the seas and skies.

The Smithsonian also planned to inform its visitors that some key presidential advisers had urged Truman to drop his demand for �unconditional surrender� and allow Japan to keep the emperor on his throne, an alteration in peace terms that might have led to an almost immediate surrender. Truman rejected that advice, only to grant the same concession after the nuclear attacks.

Keep in mind, however, that part of Truman�s motivation for dropping those bombs involved not the defeated Japanese, but the ascending Soviet Union. With the U.S.S.R. pledged to enter the war against Japan on August 8, 1945 (which it did), Truman worried that even briefly prolonging hostilities might allow the Soviets to claim a greater stake in East Asia. He and Secretary of State James Byrnes believed that a graphic demonstration of the power of the new bomb, then only in the possession of the United States, might also make that Communist power more �manageable� in Europe. The Smithsonian exhibit would have suggested that Cold War planning and posturing began in the concluding moments of World War II and that one legacy of Hiroshima would be the massive nuclear arms race of the decades to come.

In addition to displaying American artifacts like the Enola Gay, Smithsonian curators wanted to show some heartrending objects from the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima, including a schoolgirl�s burnt lunchbox, a watch dial frozen at the instant of the bomb�s explosion, a fused rosary, and photographs of the dead and dying. It would have been hard to look at these items beside that plane�s giant fuselage without feeling some sympathy for the victims of the blast.

None of this happened. The exhibit was canceled after a storm of protest. When the Air Force Association leaked a copy of the initial script to the media, critics denounced the Smithsonian for its �politically correct� and �anti-American� �revision� of history. The exhibit, they claimed, would be an insult to American veterans and fundamentally unpatriotic. Though conservatives led the charge, the Senate unanimously passed a resolutioncondemning the Smithsonian for being �revisionist and offensive� that included a tidy rehearsal of the official apologia: �The role of the Enola Gay� was momentous in helping to bring World War II to a merciful end, which resulted in saving the lives of Americans and Japanese.�

Merciful? Consider just this: the number of civilians killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone was more than twice the number of American troops killed during the entire Pacific war.

In the end, the Smithsonian displayed little but the Enola Gay itself, a gleaming relic of American victory in the �Good War.�

Our Unbroken Faith in the Greatest Generation

In the two decades since, we haven�t come closer to a genuine public examination of history�s only nuclear attack or to finding any major fault with how we waged what Studs Terkel famously dubbed �the Good War.� He used that term as the title for his classic 1984 oral history of World War II and included those quotation marks quite purposely to highlight the irony of such thinking about a war in which an estimated 60 million people died. In the years since, the term has become an American clich�, but the quotation marks have disappeared along with any hint of skepticism about our motives and conduct in those years.

Admittedly, when it comes to the launching of nuclear war (if not the firebombings that destroyed 67 Japanese cities and continued for five days after �Fat Man� was dropped on Nagasaki), there is some evidence of a more critical cast of mind in this country. Recent polls, for instance, show that �only� 56% of Americans now think we were right to use nuclear weapons against Japan, down a few points since the 1990s, while support among Americans under the age of 30 has finally fallen below 50%. You might also note that just after World War II, 85% of Americans supported the bombings.

Of course, such pro-bomb attitudes were hardly surprising in 1945, especially given the relief and joy at the war�s victorious ending and the anti-Japanese sentiment of that moment. Far more surprising: by 1946, millions of Americans were immersed in John Hersey�s best-selling book Hiroshima, a moving report from ground zero that explored the atomic bomb�s impact through the experiences of six Japanese survivors. It began with these gripping lines:

�At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.�

Hiroshima remains a remarkable document for its unflinching depictions of the bomb�s destructiveness and for treating America�s former enemy with such dignity and humanity. �The crux of the matter,� Hersey concluded, �is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result?�

The ABC Radio Network thought Hersey�s book so important that it hired four actors to read it in full on the air, reaching an even wider audience. Can you imagine a large American media company today devoting any significant air time to a work that engendered empathy for the victims of our twenty-first century wars? Or can you think of a recent popular book that prods us to consider the �material and spiritual evil� that came from our own participation in World War II? I can�t.

In fact, in the first years after that war, as Paul Boyer showed in his superb book By the Bomb�s Early Light, some of America�s triumphalism faded as fears grew that the very existence of nuclear weapons might leave the country newly vulnerable. After all, someday another power, possibly the Soviet Union, might use the new form of warfare against its creators, producing an American apocalypse that could never be seen as redemptive or merciful.

In the post-Cold War decades, however, those fears have again faded (unreasonably so since even a South Asian nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India could throw the whole planet into a version of nuclear winter). Instead, the �Good War� has once again been embraced as unambiguously righteous. Consider, for example, the most recent book about World War II to hit it big, Laura Hillenbrand�s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Published in 2010, it remained on the New York Times best-seller list in hardcover for almost four years and has sold millions of copies. In its reach, it may even surpass Tom Brokaw�s 1998 book, The Greatest Generation. A Hollywood adaptation of Unbrokenappeared last Christmas.

Hillenbrand�s book does not pretend to be a comprehensive history of World War II or even of the war in the Pacific. It tells the story of Louis Zamperini, a child delinquent turned Olympic runner turned B-24 bombardier. In 1943, his plane was shot down in the Pacific. He and the pilot survived 47 days in a life raft despite near starvation, shark attacks, and strafing by Japanese planes. Finally captured by the Japanese, he endured a series of brutal POW camps where he was the victim of relentless sadistic beatings.

The book is decidedly a page-turner, but its focus on a single American�s punishing ordeal and amazing recovery inhibits almost any impulse to move beyond the platitudes of nationalistic triumphalism and self-absorption or consider (among other things) the racism that so dramatically shaped American combat in the Pacific. That, at least, is the impression you get combing through some of the astonishing 25,000 customer reviews Unbrokenhas received on Amazon. �My respect for WWII veterans has soared,� a typical reviewer writes. �Thank you Laura Hillenbrand for loving our men at war,� writes another. It is �difficult to read of the inhumanity of the treatment of the courageous men serving our country.� And so on.

Unbroken devotes a page and a half to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, all of it from the vantage point of the American crew of the Enola Gay. Hillenbrand raises concerns about the crew�s safety: �No one knew for sure if� the bomber could get far enough away to survive what was coming.� She describes the impact of the shockwaves, not on the ground, but at 30,000 feet when they slammed into the Enola Gay, �pitching the men into the air.�

The film version of Unbroken evokes even less empathy for the Japanese experience of nuclear war, which brings to mind something a student told my graduate seminar last spring. He teaches high school social studies and when he talked with colleagues about the readings we were doing on Hiroshima, three of them responded with some version of the following: �You know, I used to think we were wrong to use nukes on Japan, but since I saw Unbroken I�ve started to think it was necessary.� We are, that is, still in the territory first plowed by Truman in that speech seven decades ago.

At the end of the film, this note appears on the screen: �Motivated by his faith, Louie came to see that the way forward was not revenge, but forgiveness. He returned to Japan, where he found and made peace with his former captors.�

That is indeed moving. Many of the prison camp guards apologized, as well they should have, and � perhaps more surprisingly � Zamperini forgave them. There is, however, no hint that there might be a need for apologies on the American side, too; no suggestion that our indiscriminate destruction of Japan, capped off by the atomic obliteration of two cities, might be, as Admiral Leahy put it, a violation of �all of the known laws of war.�

So here we are, 70 years later, and we seem, if anything, farther than ever from a rejection of the idea that launching atomic warfare on Japanese civilian populations was an act of mercy. Perhaps some future American president will finally apologize for our nuclear attacks, but one thing seems certain: no Japanese survivor of the bombs will be alive to hear it.

What do you think? Was it a bad thing to vaporize hundreds of thousands of civilians or is it hunky dory to commit war crimes? Debate and discuss.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 01:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:46

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

CommieGIR posted:

Are you implying we did not comply with the Geneva Conventions? Pretty sure the Germans started the indiscriminate bombing thing long before the British and the Americans.

Do you believe there's no point to imposing moral conventions on war? That seems to be the implication in your last post.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 06:10

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

CommieGIR posted:

The implication is that in a total war, there are likely to be civilian casualties. Should they be avoided where possible? Yes. But will they likely happen in the due course of destroying the enemies ability to carry out their war goals? Very likely, yes.

So you agree that of the bombing campaigns that the US conducted, the ones which deliberately targeted civilians (not those which killed civilians as a result of collateral damage) were immoral?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 06:27

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

CommieGIR posted:

The Japanese basically rejected the original Potsdam Declaration. They sought to continue the war. Even when the Soviets broke the Neutrality Act, the Japanese Army vastly underestimated the strength of the Soviet push and suggested to the Prime Minister that it could be handled.

The shock of the nuclear bomb being dropped helped hammer home that there was no successful end possible to the war for the Japanese.

That was a not so graceful dodge of my question.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 06:35

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

Still waiting to hear some alternatives to dropping the bombs that would have resulted in fewer deaths and the same capitulation by Japan.

Well according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey, a post war investigative body made up primarily of individuals with a military background, the US only had to wait. If they had the Japanese would "certainly" have surrendered by December 31st 1945 and "in all probability" surrendered by November 1st 1945. Alternatively the US could have done an invasion of Kyushu and from there taken the Tokyo plain. Declassified documents show that the highest credible death toll (out of those presented to Truman) was expected to be about 46,000 american soldiers. Even if we assume twice as many Japanese died in the fighting it still would have had a lower death toll than the (conservatively estimated) 250,000 or so people who ultimately died from the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 07:44

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

By the way this entire thread is about a counterfactual (what would have happened if the US didn't drop the atomic bombs on Japan) which essentially makes it historical fanfiction.

You specifically asked for counterfactuals. Now, presented with credible counterfactuals you're desperately trying to write them off entirely. This is because you are arguing in bad faith.

Red and Black fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Aug 7, 2015

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 08:17

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Fojar38 posted:

No, I asked for people to suggest credible alternatives to dropping the bomb

Which implies a counterfactual analysis of those alternatives. So why did you bother asking for counterfactuals if you intended to immediately dismiss them?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2015 08:45

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Arglebargle III posted:

Could you tell us what part of the 1864, 1906, or 1929 conventions on prisoners of war, hospitals and shipwrecked mariners the atom bomb violated? The 1949 convention had of course not taken place in 1945.

Hey guys, anything that isn't explicitly outlawed in customary international law at the time it occurred is completely OK. That's why people should stop whining about the Holocaust.

Edit: as an aside, the US did absolutely violate the Naval Protocol of 1936. Admiral Chester Nimitz basically admitted that he did when he testified to using unrestricted submarine warfare in the pacific war. Are you against US action when it actually does violate contemporary international law or is this just a weird gimmick you use solely when it benefits your tribe?

Red and Black fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Aug 9, 2015

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 05:13

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

VitalSigns posted:

If you're okay with terrorbombings, then how can you criticize anything the Japanese did, isn't terrorizing your enemy to get them to surrender a legitimate tactic according to you?

Japanese war crimes were carried out with malice, whilst US war crimes were carried out with high-mindedness and noble intentions.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 05:29

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

rudatron posted:

The bomb? Everyone did strategic bombing, MAD didn't exist yet and the use of the bomb was well inline with what had already been happening the entire war.

Sorry, the other tribe committing war crimes does not excuse your tribe's war crimes.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 08:25

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

BattleMaster posted:

Can it be justified as a necessary evil if there's evidence that it had a net positive effect on reducing the total number of lives lost?

(Not rhetorical, I'm actually asking for a wider range of opinions than *lists crimes* "they deserved it!"; I'm just glad I'm not someone who has to make decisions like that)

Maybe it could be justified, but such clean moral decisions don't actually exist in reality. It's better to adhere to moral principles than the entertain Trolley Problem-esque hypotheticals.

In the specific case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there's nothing to indicate it saved lives. 6 of the 7 five-star generals that held their position during the end of World War 2 are on record as saying that dropping the atomic bombs was unnecessary. The US Strategic Bombing survey came to that same conclusion after hundreds of interviews with former Japanese officials. The current debate is more about whitewashing the US's crimes, and not hurting sensitive American nationalist feelings than any meaningful moral calculus.

rudatron posted:

Whether an action is justified or not cannot be separated from its context. I understand that this is probably difficult to understand for you, since both you and your namesake are idealist idiots, but actually existing morality/ideology has to deal with the world as it exists, not as you want it to exist.

Sure. Pray tell, what context was that? What specifically was it about World War 2 that forced the poor, reluctant United States to forsake its noble principles and target civilians en masse?

Red and Black fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Aug 10, 2015

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 08:40

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

rudatron posted:

The context is the most destructive war in human history that the allies are getting sicking of not being able to end decisively, but there being too much of a sunken cost in getting anything less than an unconditional surrender, and certain allied countries having been on the receiving end of strategic bombing raids.

Well this is just me, but the US "getting sick of not being able to end [the war] decisively" doesn't seem to be a proper justification for vaporizing tens of thousands of people. Nor is having a high "sunken cost" (very vague, by the way) an excuse to avoid at least attempting a diplomatic approach before vaporizing tens of thousands of people. I'll go ahead and ignore the rest of your post because there doesn't seem to be anything of substance past the first sentence.

Miltank posted:

So what sort of testing could we have done on the A-bomb that would have made it a sure thing and therefor ok to use for its intended purpose of destroying enemy infrastructure?Seems like the military base at Hiroshima was a good place to debut it.

Do you believe Seattle is a military target?

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 14:28

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

I guess I'm just too low on the moral spectrum to accept your handwavy arguments for mass murder.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 14:57

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

klen dool posted:

But I think the extreme reaction that sets the fat man and little boy apart is that people remember the arsenal built up by the us and ussr, and kind of back-port the very real fear that the world can wiped out onto a nuclear naive world of the past. It's not rational, understandable but not rational.

This isn't true by the way, although it's been said many times in this thread. The threat of the Cold War was understood even before dropping the bomb. Actually about 70 scientists from the Manhattan Project sent a letter to Truman pleading him to not drop the bomb on Japan. Largely because they understood the threat a nuclear arms race would pose.

quote:

A PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan.

We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power. Until recently, we have had to fear that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows:

The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare. We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not unless the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender.

If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuits in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender our nation might then, in certain circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic bombs. Such a step, however, ought not to be made at any time without seriously considering the moral responsibilities which are involved.

The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.

If after this war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States � singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power.

The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.

In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in light of the considerations presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 12:46

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Miltank posted:

Its not about America winning or losing as much as its about wining the war quickly. 200,000 civilians a month were dying in Japanese controlled territory at the time.

What is your source for this?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 00:29

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

CommieGIR posted:

17 Million - 22 Million Chinese Nationals were killed under Japanese Occupation, not to mention the use of chemical and biological weapons by the IJA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Alls_Policy

The Three Alls Policy: Kill All, Burn All, Loot All.

From your Wikipedia link:

quote:

In a study published in 1996, historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta claims that the Three Alls Policy, sanctioned by Emperor Hirohito himself, was both directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of "more than 2.7 million" Chinese civilians.

2.7 million is different from 17-22 million by an order of magnitude. Please cite your sources for the latter figure. Then furthermore, please demonstrate that "at the time" the atomic bomb was dropped 200,000 civilians were dying a month, since generally casualty rates vary during different periods of time.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 00:47

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

CommieGIR posted:

2.7 million was only a PORTION of the 22 million killed. They are not two different numbers.

Citing the Three Alls policy was to demonstrate the sort of disgusting hatred the IJA inflicted upon their occupied territories.

Ok so Rummel estimates 6 million. Even the high range of that estimate is 10 million. You nearly quadrupled the estimate. Now please show that 200,000 people were dying a month in July of 1945.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 00:59

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

VitalSigns posted:

If someone makes the claim that killing 200,000 civilians with an atomic bomb is justified because it saved 200,000 civilians per month in the occupied territories, it's not unreasonable to ask for support for this number.

Yeah exactly, the primary argument being tossed around by the pro-nuke crowd is that the bomb saved more people than it killed. Then you have a "Trolley problem" style morality question. However the factual basis of that trolley problem has yet to be established.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 02:00

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

crabcakes66 posted:

I think some of the parallels between the Empire of Japan and the Confederacy are interesting. They both initiated wars they really had no hope of winning. They both assumed the other side wouldn't fight. They were both clearly and utterly defeated. And yet to this day many of their people and their defenders make it seem as if they were the victims

It comes from a policy of distinguishing civilians from theor government. It's perfectly possible to, for example, recognize the crimes of the confederacy while also recognizing that the burning of Atlanta was a war crime.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 02:41

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Dead Reckoning posted:

I was talking about denial, I'm not sure what you're on about.

Ah well, that particular custom is not unique to the Japanese and in fact occurs in just about every nation in the world.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2015 03:55

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Jack of Hearts posted:

Not in America it doesn't.

lol

# ¿ Aug 16, 2015 04:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:46

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

Bolow posted:

It depends what you want to classify as a military benefit. If we're talking about raw materiel and war fighting capability reductions than no, the strategic bombing campaign was a failure by every possible metric. As a weapon of terror, it was extremely effective. It took the US almost an entire month to establish their occupation forces after Japan finally capitulated, in the interim they flew low level B-25 flights to scare the poo poo out of the locals and serve as a warning. Basically "if you try to oppose this occupation we will bomb the poo poo out of you indiscriminately". Also there was no side benefit of the bombing raids drawing out the Japanese Air Force for it to be bled dry as it was in Europe.

Strategic bombing didnt reduce Japanese military capability? That surprises me. What is your source? The Strategic Bombing Survey?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 08:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The indefensible Hiroshima revisionism that haunts America to this day