Untold History of the United States

[Coito ergo sum]

So we can do whatever we like, then, no matter how heinous, because we're the United States and that makes it okay. We make our own rules *waves flag*

With this sort of attitude, we fucking deserved 9-11

I hope Iran makes some nuclear bombs and annihilates our piece of shit country. The last survivors will say, "Hey, that's not fair! Only we get to use nuclear bombs!" And they'll say that right before their skin sloughs off and the last of us fucking retards die of radiation poisoning. And we'll fucking deserve it, every fucking inch of it

Tat, of all the ways to end the war, this was the fastest, so it saved the most lives. And you can't put our current knowledge of the effects of radiation on the decision-makers back then. If you'd have read the thread you'd know better.

So the end justifies the means. And we can do whatever we want. Our actions happen in a vacuum and have no consequences. Jolly good. I'm off to rape someone right now. I'm horny and I need to get laid. The end result is the important thing. Best to buy a gun. When I get finished raping, I'll kill the useless cunt. That way she can't tell on me. Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of this new morality (or lack thereof). Whatever is in my own best interests is A-Okay. And fortunately EVERYTHING is in my own best interests

I think Ian said exactly the opposite. I mean -- when none of the means are good, the one with the best or least awful consequences would seem to be the preferable one. Our actions do have consequences, but so too would holding back on the bombs and continuing the conventional war. And, those consequences were estimated to cause millions of deaths over another year of war. Since our actions DO have consequences, is that what you'd prefer the consequences to have been?

The bombs actually resulted in the war ending in days and saving untold misery and at least hundreds of thousands of Japanese deaths that would have had to occur if the war was to be won conventionally. Do you dispute that?

[Coito ergo sum]

No one can prove a retrospective case, in either direction. We know precisely the consequences of dropping the bomb, because that is our actual history.

We cannot do an experimental repeat of history, to explore the consequences of not dropping the bomb, and the myriad of ways in which the ending of the Pacific War could have gone from there. On the balance of probabilities, from all I've read, I think the consequences would have most likely involved a higher overall death toll, on both sides, but I can't be certain...

In any case, it is a little strange to expend so much anger and angst over a past event.

Alea jacta est.

Jim, we do know that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people would have died if the surrender orders had not gone out. We do know that a siege of Japan would have killed countless numbers of people, first the babies when their mothers couldn't give them suck, and the old folks who couldn't get enough to eat because it was going to the people who could fight. We know the Japanese commanders in China were ready to destroy entire towns as a Gotterdammerung gesture before they committed suicide.

We have a very good idea how bad it would have been if the war had gone on.

I think "know" would best be replaced by "is highly likely"

Sure, but that's just semantics. We can also say that we don't "know" that Hitler wouldn't have laid down his arms in 1940, had the United Kingdom not simply laid down its arms and pledged to coexist with Fortress Europe. They might have. It's highly likely that the Germans would have continued to attack Britain, I suspect, but do we "know" it? How can we?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Like I said above, I'm good with "know". The Malayan POWs were ~150,000 and that's one group. The war was still going elsewhere.

[Coito ergo sum]

Are we or are we not the good guys? ARE WE OR ARE WE NOT THE FUCKING GOOD GUYS? If we're not the good guys, then take the goddamn Constitution and the Bill of Rights and throw them in the fucking trash because they're worthless.

Stop whining and give us a reasonable alternative that would've ended the war quicker.

Who gives a shit what I'd do? I don't know what I'd do. I don't know everything. I'm not Doctor bloody Bernofski. What I'd do is completely irrelevant. The important thing is what I would not do, what I would never do, what no civilized nation or people should ever do. You mentioned other instances of genocide in an earlier post. Yes, that's exactly my point. Heinous acts, weren't they, perpetrated by the scum of the earth, weren't they? And then we did the same. Making us scum also. Forgive me if that doesn't sit well with me, and I consider it, oh, I dunno, wrong in some way.
If we're going to justify the unjustifiable, reconcile the irreconcilable, then we are no longer the good guys, and the American dream, which used to actually mean something, and should still mean something, is dead. Put a fork in it, it's done. The grand experiment has been concluded, and it is a failure.

Let's rephrase it then.

What was the better option?

Wouldn't it be worse to refrain from dropping the bombs if the alternative is worse (involving more death and destruction than the bombs)? Do you at least agree with that premise -- that the best thing to do would be to take the course of action that involves the quickest and least deadly end to the war?

[MrJonno]

Wasnt the plan to use mass nerve gas attacks on Japanese cities if the atomic bomb had failed?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Wasnt the plan to use mass nerve gas attacks on Japanese cities if the atomic bomb had failed?

I don't recall that. Let me check.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hmmmm....to summarise the pro-bombing argument - "if we don't kill loads of civilians now, even more will die later. Maybe"

I don't find this entirely compelling.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

According to Frank, page 143, the issue of poison gas was being pressed by Marshall within the Joint Chiefs as late as June 18th. I can check the other books for more information on that if you want.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hmmmm....to summarise the pro-bombing argument - "if we don't kill loads of civilians now, even more will die later. Maybe"

I don't find this entirely compelling.

Silly summary.

"If we don't use full force to end the war it will continue and more people will die."

[Coito ergo sum]

sandinista, you are simply quoting specious left-wing propaganda, rather than serious historical documents or research...

As always...

Yah, I know you prefer liberal propaganda. If you want serious historical documents or research read some books, start with the first one I posted a link to.

Well, this is the left wing position.

Nothing is the truth. Everyone is just spouting propaganda, and so whatever is necessary to achieve the desired result is what is advanced. Nothing is believed -- only asserted for a purpose.

[Clinton Huxley]

Hmmmm....to summarise the pro-bombing argument - "if we don't kill loads of civilians now, even more will die later. Maybe"

I don't find this entirely compelling.

Silly summary.

"If we don't use full force to end the war it will continue and more people will die."

I'm 60/40 on this, I generally find myself in agreement with A.C. Grayling.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hmmmm....to summarise the pro-bombing argument - "if we don't kill loads of civilians now, even more will die later. Maybe"

I don't find this entirely compelling.

Silly summary.

"If we don't use full force to end the war it will continue and more people will die."

I'm 60/40 on this, I generally find myself in agreement with A.C. Grayling.

Never heard of him/her.

[Coito ergo sum]

Sandinista, I can't see your post WITH ALL THE FLAGS WAVING IN MY FACE.

Who the fuck is waving a flag?? Who here is claiming anything honorable or glorious about the bombs? Not me. I'm sure not saying it was one of America's prouder moments (Sandi probably thinks I am, but he does not know how to think). I'm only saying that they were necessary evils, and by far the lesser evil compared with the other choice. There was no good choice, unfortunately.

And you again ducked the question about what would've been a better thing to do. So all you're doing is reacting to history with emotion rather than objective thought, i.e. you're just whining.

He's just compensating for not having a clue by making himself look foolish. It's the best he can do.

Ian, I don't know what would've been a better thing to do. I don't know enough about the situation to even hazard a guess. All I'm saying is that the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians is not the way to go.

Yes! Yes! So, if murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians is not the way to go, then you would ALSO oppose finishing the war in conventional fashion, with a million man invasion of the big island of Japan, firebombs, flamethrowers, hundreds of thousands of tons of conventional ordnance, house to house fighting, and that sort of thing, as well as blockades that starve out the Japanese people by the hundreds of thousands -- you'd also oppose that, too, yes?

That has nothing to do with hindsight. It should never have been considered a legitimate option to begin with.

Why not? Aren't all options available that might bring a swifter and less bloody end to the war options that should be considered? What if the dropping of the bombs would have cost, say, 100,000 lives? 50,000? 25,000? Is there a non-zero number that you would find acceptable in light of the reasonable alternatives at the time? Or, are you taking the position that dropping atomic bombs were illegitimate no matter what?

You may not consider it honorable or glorious what we did, but you still rationalize it and defend it. What we did is simply indefensible.

So, even if you were to assume, for the sake of argument, that not dropping the bomb and continuing the conventional war would have resulted in a million more deaths than resulted from Hiroshima/Nagasaki, you would say the bombs are indefensible?

What about setting off one of the bombs offshore as an example of what we were capable of?

Tsunamis and Earthquakes kill hundreds of thousands of people, and setting off a nuclear bomb over the ocean tends to cause those. And, if the bomb is close enough to the generals to see it and believe it was a bomb, then hundreds of thousands of Japanese are going to die anyway, because it's not too far off shore.

Zilla, I don't know what clue I need to have. Killing hundreds of thousands of civilians is wrong,

Isn't it wrong no matter how it's done?

and it's not the sort of thing the United States should be doing. It betrays our own ideals. I don't know why it's foolish to say that murder is wrong. The end doesn't justify the means. If we murder, then we become the enemy. The enemy is us. This country should be better than that. It's supposed to be. It's meant to be.

Is there a way to end the war that would not result in hundreds of thousands of dead civilians?

[Coito ergo sum]

Hmmmm....to summarise the pro-bombing argument - "if we don't kill loads of civilians now, even more will die later. Maybe"

I don't find this entirely compelling.

Well, that wasn't the argument.

It was 'if we don't drop the bombs, then we know that far more people (Americans and Japanese included) will die because we're not stupid and we know roughly the kind of casualties that will ensue if we invade the main island of Japan, at least to know that the number would be an order of magnitude more than what happened in Hiro and Naga."

I mean -- it's not as if the invasion of Japan was being done in some sort of speculative, haphazard fashion where we just had no idea what kind of losses we'd face. It's not like the generals were, like, "well, it might be a complete route, and we'll not lose a man, and the Japanese will great us with flowers and whisky..." -- how can we know?

There are things that were known. We had experience fighting the Japanese. They were not surrendering. If the war was to be finished, we'd have to take the big island of Japan. In doing so to say that "double" the number of civilians that died in Hiro/Naga would die in the invasion is, by any estimation, a gross understatement. It is so abundantly clear that the opponents of dropping the bomb NEVER argue that the invasion of Japan would likely or even ARGUABLY be less deadly. That's why the bomb-detractors avoid that altogether and are content with saying "well, we only know what happened, we can't really know what would have happened otherwise." -- But, they NEVER say -- "here are some reasons why I think the invasion by the allies of the main island of Japan would be less deadly...."

And, that argument could be made --- one might have casualty estimates based on contemporary sources, if they existed, that show that there was a way to invade overwhelmingly that would cost few lives. One could look at the Japanese troop levels and the allied forces and calculate, using military theories and mathematics, and come up with a good argument even from hindsight. Military persons do this all the time with wars from way back in Roman times all the way to the present -- they do "what ifs" and do calculations and they learn how to calculate what troops are necessary to handle things like Iraq and Afghanistan and other operations. So, is there someone who thinks -- anywhere - some expert or military aficionado -- who thinks something other than the invasion of Japan would have cost far more lives than what were lost in Hiro and Naga?

[Clinton Huxley]

You're presuming that Japan needed to be invaded at all.