60 Years Ago This Week

[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

You should remember just how harsh I am on anti-American viewpoints ...

You really should not beat yourself up so much.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

TW, as usual you are perfection in wrongness. I am pro-American, far more than you can manage to be if your posts accurately reflect your beliefs. I mean, dear boy, you're a leftist! Half-bright, at best. Me, I don't adhere to ideologies that make me stupid. Consequently, my kind of thinking is better than yours any day of the week, and twice over on Sundays and holidays.

"Beat yourself up," quotha!

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

I mean, dear boy, you're a leftist! Half-bright, at best. Me, I don't adhere to ideologies that make me stupid.

[djacq75]

However, in July 1945 they had already had their clocks cleaned. Their idea of an offensive was a kamikaze attack. Apples and oranges.

[tw]

Originally Posted by djacq75

However, in July 1945 they had already had their clocks cleaned. Their idea of an offensive was a kamikaze attack. Apples and oranges.

Kamikaze was about defense - not an offensive strategy. Kamikaze was a last ditch attempt to lose a war WITHOUT unconditional surrender. The allies' strategic objective was a last remaining purpose to keep fighting. Unconditional surrender meant occupation of the Japanese homeland - that had never happened. It meant the emperor could be removed and imprisoned - which the Japanese just were not yet prepared to accept. The Japanese expected to fight for every inch all across mainland Japan. Not to win the war. Everyone knew that would never happen. Japan feared the allied strategic objective - the requirement to end hostilities - the exit strategy - the only reason the Pacific War continued. Unconditional surrender was that requirement. A requirement that good leaders established up front and maintained to the end.

BTW, why could Americans demand nothing less after so many years of war? The smoking gun - Pearl Harbor. Just another example of why a smoking gun is so essential to win a war.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by tw

Kamikaze was about defense - not an offensive strategy.

Yes, I realize that. "Their idea of an offensive was a kamikaze attack" was meant as a pointed, sarcastic statement.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Sure, their capability of launching an offensive against our superior forces, that had pushed them back to the homeland, was fizzling. Now what? Surround the country forever? A costly, to both sides, invasion? Trust them to behave?

American’s wanted it over, finished, WON........bring the troops home. The most expedient unconditional surrender possible. That’s what Truman gave us.

I was thinking about this last night, while watching a show on PBS, about the bridge on the river Kwai. The story behind the railroad being built, interviews with some of the POWs that survived and the documentation that remains today.
We'll have to agree to disagree because you'll never convince me it wasn't the absolute right thing for Truman to do.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

We'll have to agree to disagree because you'll never convince me it wasn't the absolute right thing for Truman to do.

Remember that your perspective is completely different from his perspective. It is but another reason why we learn history. Same exact facts can appear completely different from different perspectives. It is why Kennedy so saved all our lives when he kept asking the important question during a Cuban Missile Crisis. What is he being told? What does he see? What does he know? Without those questions, it is a sure probability that the 1st Marine Division would have been nuked on the beaches of Cuba.

Same must be asked before judging Truman from our perspective.

[FloridaDragon]

Is the focus of this discussion the morality of using the atom bomb to kill "civilians" or the morality of killing civilians to begin with? Don't forget we were already bombing the hell out of their cities by the time the a-bombs fell. Take for example the fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10th 1945, which resulted in 16 square miles of Tokyo being destroyed and over 100,000 dead. Just about the same effect of an atomic bomb but it took a lot more planes and a lot more bombs.
It is hard to ever justify the killing of civilian populations but it was a standard all the major powers of WWII commonly practiced. If the a-bombs had not been dropped more Japanese would probably have died from the bombing of the cities BEFORE any invasion anyway. Doesn't make it right but, being an American through and through, better them then a million of our troops to invade.

[djacq75]

Originally Posted by FloridaDragon

Is the focus of this discussion the morality of using the atom bomb to kill "civilians" or the morality of killing civilians to begin with? Don't forget we were already bombing the hell out of their cities by the time the a-bombs fell. Take for example the fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10th 1945, which resulted in 16 square miles of Tokyo being destroyed and over 100,000 dead. Just about the same effect of an atomic bomb but it took a lot more planes and a lot more bombs.
It is hard to ever justify the killing of civilian populations but it was a standard all the major powers of WWII commonly practiced. If the a-bombs had not been dropped more Japanese would probably have died from the bombing of the cities BEFORE any invasion anyway. Doesn't make it right but, being an American through and through, better them then a million of our troops to invade.

To take this in order:

1. The annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are worse than that of Tokyo not because they were atomic, but because they were undertaken when peace was at hand, meaning those who lost their lives there lost them even more senselessly than those lost up to that point. But I will readily grant that the whole war was a senseless bloodbath the U.S. should've abstained from entering.

2. Yes, it was the policy of all sides in WW2 to roast civilians alive by the thousands. One conclusion that might be drawn from this fact is that describing WW2 as a "good war" in which we, on a white horse, faced down fascist evil, on a black horse, is essentially bullshit. Oddly that conclusion, intuitive though it is, is not a popular one.

3. "Our" troops? They were Roosevelt's troops. The idea that the government protects any of us via war is kneejerk imbecility. The truth is exactly the other way around; we save their bacon from their enemies--at least those of us gullible enough to follow their cynical call to arms.

[wolf]

With the US in the war, the Germans couldn't cross the English channel. They probably would have otherwise.

[djacq75]

They intended to invade Britain in 1940. The U.S. entered the war in December 1941, by which time the British had whipped the German Air Force.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, right.......no way Hitler ever could have beat Britian.

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yeah, right.......no way Hitler ever could have beat Britian.

Aired originally in Sept 2004, this PBS documentary called Battlefield Britian discusses this desperate attempt to keep Britian from being invaded. It is also airing on some PBS stations tonight 1 Mar 2006. Details by going here and then clicking on the entry for:
Battlefield Britian
This hyperlink for those nearby The Cellar. Others should select their own PBS stations at http://www.pbs.org .

[djacq75]

Even if Hitler could've beaten Britain--which was just barely possible in 1940, and not possible at all in 1941--that's a far cry from being able to cross the Atlantic ocean and invade the United States. Invading a country, occupying it, and governing it are rather different animals.