60 Years Ago This Week

[tw]

Originally Posted by djacq75

Yes, but the Emperor could've made them swallow it on July 15 as easily as on August 15. He was a god, remember?

Notice two fundamental facts. First, purpose of war is to take a conflict back to the negotiation table. Getting there was a problem because, second, 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management.

To end WWII, destruction had to be so great as to force top management to concede to reality. Reality was unconditional surrender. Japan leaders refused to concede to that bottom line long after the war was lost. Therefore people had to keep dying. Keep dying until Japan conceded to conditions for negotiations. The purpose of war - and death - that negotiation table.

[Undertoad]

The notion of only weakening your enemies for a while, and not totally defeating them, is an entirely new one to history.

We don't really defeat enemies these days. But that may not be to the enemy's benefit. The transformation of Japan from a hardcore religious state to a peaceful polite culture only interested in trade only happened because their defeat was so total. The 3M killed after our departure from Vietnam was not really the best outcome either. Looks like eastern Europe was a good idea under Clinton so who's to say.

[xoxoxoBruce]

we no longer even consider the possibility that we could have done the wrong thing dropping atomic weapons on civilians.

Never did consider the possibility, ever. There were no civilians in Japan. Every damn one of them was part of the national war effort and armed. They were all trained and prepared to fight to the death to protect Japan and the emperor.
Little did they know the Emperor was a prisoner in his own house but that's another matter.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Never did consider the possibility, ever. There were no civilians in Japan. Every damn one of them was part of the national war effort and armed. They were all trained and prepared to fight to the death to protect Japan and the emperor.
Little did they know the Emperor was a prisoner in his own house but that's another matter.

Did they have tiny rifles for the infants and toddlers?

I hadn't read this thread, but this morning I was reflecting on the difference between 'evil' and 'enemy'.

Consider what happens when people visit countries like Vietnam. Some of the people who we meet there are directly responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. If they were evil then, nothing has changed and they should be killed. However, the reality is that they were merely enemies, the war is over, and killing them would be immoral and illegal.

We acknowledge that targeting civilians is wrong. In WWII we dropped a devastating bomb without warning on a city. We destroyed the second city only 3 days later.

A lot of discussion went into the use of the Atomic Bomb

In the end we decided that conventional means were too difficult and the bomb would have an important pschological effect if the first public use was against a live target. Technically, the target was military, but the choice was made to specifically destroy as much of the city as possible. The decision may also have been political and intended for the Russians.

If you can picture a group of Islamic terrorists debating the detonation of a 'dirty bomb' in a US city, you can appreciate the conclusions reached. Expediency will always win over morality.

Between blast and radiation, we probably killed about 300,000 people. Estimates are that an invasion of Japan would have resulted in 1 million deaths. Of course, other factors, such as Japan accepting a conditional surrender instead of the unconditional surrender we demanded, make the equation less clear.

Don't ask me what is right and wrong in situations like this. War is never a good place to determine right and wrong. I will say that if we had been on the receiving end of either of those two bombs, we would have used the word 'terrorist' freely. Of course, that's just politics.


From here

(2) Hiroshima - This is an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target. (Classified as an AA Target)

B. In this respect Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed. The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Never did consider the possibility, ever. There were no civilians in Japan. Every damn one of them was part of the national war effort and armed. They were all trained and prepared to fight to the death to protect Japan and the emperor.
Little did they know the Emperor was a prisoner in his own house but that's another matter.

Honest question, Bruce. Where did you get this tidbit of information? I can understand that boys above a certain age and old men were prepared to fight, but the women and small children? The traditional role of a Japanese woman was not to be a new age liberated girl with a pistol on each hip. Are you telling us that Japan managed this massive cultural transfomation in just the few years it was involved in WWII? I am astonished! I'd love to read more about this.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We don't really defeat enemies these days. But that may not be to the enemy's benefit.

I was thinking about that. Japan might have limped along with a petty tyranny like Iraq had for a long long time. The Japanese people did make the best of it when we gave them the opportunity. I won't minimize that. It may not be knowable whether the Japanese would have capitulated to us without the bombs to avoid a Russian invasion. There are countless ifs and buts.

I watched Tora Tora Tora a couple weeks ago btw. The most striking thing was how Western the Navy and its trappings were portrayed. I don't think the people in general were Westernized at all but many of their most powerful leaders were looking West. I think Macarthur probably took advantage of that. I'm not sure there is a group in Iraq of any consequence who would lead the people in that direction. I'm rambling so I'll just stop.

[Radar]

Actually, we didn't "drop the bomb on civilians" either. We dropped them on military installations near those cities, and civilians lived nearby. All of the people of Japan would have used their dying breath to save their god...Hirohito.

The real pity is that we went to war with them at all. America committed an act of war against Japan fully knowing their honor would force them to attack us. America cut off Japan's oil supply, steel supply, and others they were getting from the Netherlands and were using to murder Chinese people. While I don't think what Japan was doing was right, it was also none of our business. We had no legitimate reason to stick our noses into it. America knew that Japan was allied with Germany and wanted a legitimate reason to get into the war because, like WWI, England and France were, begging for our help. America even had enough advance notice to have avoided the Pearl Harbor attack but instead, moved out all of the expensive carriers, and new ships, and allowed the older ships to be attacked and Americans to die.

This is a fact and if you read the de-classified OPERATINO RAINBOW 5 documents, you'll know it was a ploy to force Japan into attacking us.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Marichiko, Japanese social organization has more in common with military organization than civilian-type mores even today. It's been this way since at least the Tokugawas, and seems to have sprung from the Age of Battles between rival power blocs that ended when the Tokugawas came out on top. I think that was after the battle of Sekigahara. Japanese society was very tightly organized and is so today -- every village had its headman, and there were designated persons in charge of every ten, every fifty, every hundred, and they were called according to how many people they were in charge of: han cho is the "captain of a hundred/village headman" and the English honcho is directly derived from this.

Most of the Japanese notion of social virtues are distinctly military -- the Japanese esteem the team player and protest at the eccentric in ways we don't. They are a very disciplined and orderly people in consequence.

Japanese society is so tightly conformist that they establish local festivals for the entire town to have fun together and blow off major steam, and boy do they. They holler, they carry on, they get lit on beer and sake out in the streets, which they don't do on ordinary days, and whiz into the roadside rain gutters (the best kind is very deep and roofed over with perforated concrete lids about a foot long by eight inches wide) -- as discreetly as they may. I like Sapporo and am not so keen on Ki-rin, which is considerably hoppier.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Radar, I wouldn't try having it both ways like this: every single war you've cited, and more besides, were wars fought with nondemocracies, autarchies, dictatorships. Such things are our business, particularly if we want a good world. Is not dictatorship the most easily found and most prevalent evil on the Earth's face? I want a good world, and I'm willing to hang slavemakers to get it. Will you join me?

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The form of government another country has is none of our business. How they treat their people is none of our business. It's not the job of America to create a "good world" or to "hang slavemakers". No, I will not join you. In fact I'll fight against you, and anyone else who would try to use the U.S. military to do anything other than defend U.S. soil and ships from a direct attack. That includes using it to enforce UN sanctions, perform "humanitarian aid" missions, to settle foreign disputes, to train the military of other nations, to overthrow the leadership of non-democracies, to coerce other nations into adopting policies the U.S. wants, etc.

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." - John Quincy Adams

[xoxoxoBruce]

Did they have tiny rifles for the infants and toddlers?

No, their mothers were prepared to kill them if all was lost. The "civilians", anyone that could walk, had knives, spears, homemade grenades, some guns(ammo was a problem) but many of them were muzzle loaders. They were organized to reinforce a militia of several hundred thousand old men and boys. If you don't believe they were serious just look at the films from the islands of women throwing their children off the cliffs, before they themselves jumped, rather than surrender.......and that wasn't even the homeland.

[Dr. Zaius]

Some images of a new role for Japanese women. Pressed into service for Home Island defence with obsolete rifles, or whatever could be found. Don't know how long they would have lasted against Allied tanks but it would have made for some ugly newsreel footage.


(Kikuchi Shunkichi) Women training with bamboo spears, 1945



(Kageyama Kôyô) Neighbourhood Association women training with rifles, 1943

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Look; you don't want a good world enough. I cannot make you want it, but I will say with my dying breath that you should.

If the blessings of liberty are to extend to all men, those who would not permit this must be converted or neutralized. Why would you willingly see peoples left unfree, having freedom yourself? Better to exert yourself, to strike the shackles away. Dead slavemakers make no more slaves, and that is what is wanted, is it not? Isolationism stopped being an option many decades ago. Aggressive, expansionist slavemaking has been the threat that has strained and imperiled democracy and liberty worldwide. While it is in retreat now, will it remain so? I think the way that I espouse and advocate makes a way to blunt this kind of expansionism.

[Radar]

Non-interventionism is not isolationism. I wish freedom for all people, but freedom is to be earned by those who desire it, not won for them by someone else. America has absolutely no authority beyond our own borders unless it is to attack those who have directly attacked American soil or ships and nobody else.

The powers of the U.S. government are EXTREMELY limited and don't include spreading "democracy". In fact the United States is not a democracy. It never was, and hopefully it never will be.

Sticking our nose into the affairs of other nations is why we have so many enemies. Switzerland has been surrounded by war for more than 100 years and has not been in one. Why? Because they don't take sides in every dispute, they have a very strong DEFENSE but not an OFFENSE, and because they take care of their own.

I will never be "converted" or "neutralized" by you or your ilk. But I'm in Los Angeles and since you're in SoCal, we can meet up if you want to give it a shot.

Anyone who supports the war in Iraq is not worthy to call themselves American. They defile the U.S. Constitution and support violating each and every principle that made America great. America is supposed to always remain neutral, and never take part in the disputes of other nations. The U.S. Constitution (the highest law in the land) defines the role of the military as being a DEFENSIVE one.

It's too bad there are a lot of idiots out there who would misuse the U.S. military to violate that directive. These are the ones who truly need to be neutralized and when the day comes for violent revolution, I'll be among those doing the neutralizing.

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
– John F. Kennedy

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
– James Madison

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
– Thomas Jefferson

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
– Benjamin Franklin

"We have guided missiles and misguided men."
– Martin Luther King Jr.

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
– Edward Abbey

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by Radar

Non-interventionism is not isolationism. I wish freedom for all people, but freedom is to be earned by those who desire it, not won for them by someone else.

So a people who are in no position to help themselves and gain freedom, don't deserve it? If you saw someone pull up to your neighbor's house, don a ski mask and head in with a shotgun, would you call the police or let your neighbor suffer?

I don't see how helping people who need it when you have the power to do something is a bad thing.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

So a people who are in no position to help themselves and gain freedom, don't deserve it? If you saw someone pull up to your neighbor's house, don a ski mask and head in with a shotgun, would you call the police or let your neighbor suffer?

I don't see how helping people who need it when you have the power to do something is a bad thing.

Well here in Philadelphia some people called the police to complain about their neighbors and they ended up burning down the neighborhood.

As many 'neighbors' have suffered under regimes we supported as have been freed from regimes we dissolved.

While we have a volunteer military, maybe an extreme interventionist philosophy will work for some. Eventually, however, we will have to draft 18-year-old kids to police the new world order this philsophy wishes to establish. And we will bankrupt ourselves in the same way the Soviet Union did trying to keep up with US spending during the cold war.