Untold History of the United States

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Jason » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:28 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
Făkünamę wrote:Wouldn't it have been possible, theoretically, to blockade Japan until they surrendered? Maintaining the air and sea superiority you had would not have been a problem. You could have engaged in a strategic bombing campaign that would cripple their industrial centres while minimizing civilian casualties, dropped propaganda pamphlets over densely populated areas with 'care packages' of food and medical supplies encouraging the Japanese people to surrender, and perhaps the empire would have collapsed from within inside of a year.
So, rather than drop 2 atomic bombs on them, we should blockade the millions of japanese civilians on the island and starve them out in a siege? What of their medical supplies and food? Would we then make embargo exceptions for humanitarian aid, and then set up a long term siege where we feed, clothe and medically treat the Japanese, but box them in indefinitely while they engage in guerrilla warfare for years on end?
Dafuq? I said airdrop them food and med supplies. Easily done, and it wouldn't have to supply the entire population. Farmers would still be working. It would subvert popular suppor of the imperialist government within a year, I'm sure. There would be minimal fighting. Sleeper agents could have been inserted to organize an uprising when the time came and to report back to the American fleet letting them know when to actually invade in full force (to coincide with the uprising). There would not have been mass starvation, pestilence, and plague. That's just BS.

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:29 pm

Făkünamę wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Făkünamę wrote:Wouldn't it have been possible, theoretically, to blockade Japan until they surrendered? Maintaining the air and sea superiority you had would not have been a problem. You could have engaged in a strategic bombing campaign that would cripple their industrial centres while minimizing civilian casualties, dropped propaganda pamphlets over densely populated areas with 'care packages' of food and medical supplies encouraging the Japanese people to surrender, and perhaps the empire would have collapsed from within inside of a year.
So, rather than drop 2 atomic bombs on them, we should blockade the millions of japanese civilians on the island and starve them out in a siege? What of their medical supplies and food? Would we then make embargo exceptions for humanitarian aid, and then set up a long term siege where we feed, clothe and medically treat the Japanese, but box them in indefinitely while they engage in guerrilla warfare for years on end?
Dafuq? I said airdrop them food and med supplies. Easily done, and it wouldn't have to supply the entire population. Farmers would still be working. It would subvert popular suppor of the imperialist government within a year, I'm sure. There would be minimal fighting. Sleeper agents could have been inserted to organize an uprising when the time came and to report back to the American fleet letting them know when to actually invade in full force (to coincide with the uprising). There would not have been mass starvation, pestilence, and plague. That's just BS.
Do you remember the Berlin Airlift? One city, barely kept alive by all the resources we could muster. Do that for an entire country.
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by MrJonno » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:34 pm

Has any army or country in modern times been starved in submission?, The Germans possible in Stalingrad but probably more likely frozen into it. There was mass starvation in Leningrad but they kept the military fed?

With strict rationing its pretty hard to starve an entire country into submission, people don't need that much food to survive, quite a bit more to fight through
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Clinton Huxley » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:35 pm

We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:39 pm

More than 100,000 residents of Manila died during the fighting to take that city. Between 40-100,00 Okinawan civilians died when we invaded there. How many cities the size of Manila in Japan?
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Coito ergo sum » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:41 pm

Făkünamę wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Făkünamę wrote:Wouldn't it have been possible, theoretically, to blockade Japan until they surrendered? Maintaining the air and sea superiority you had would not have been a problem. You could have engaged in a strategic bombing campaign that would cripple their industrial centres while minimizing civilian casualties, dropped propaganda pamphlets over densely populated areas with 'care packages' of food and medical supplies encouraging the Japanese people to surrender, and perhaps the empire would have collapsed from within inside of a year.
So, rather than drop 2 atomic bombs on them, we should blockade the millions of japanese civilians on the island and starve them out in a siege? What of their medical supplies and food? Would we then make embargo exceptions for humanitarian aid, and then set up a long term siege where we feed, clothe and medically treat the Japanese, but box them in indefinitely while they engage in guerrilla warfare for years on end?
Dafuq? I said airdrop them food and med supplies. Easily done, and it wouldn't have to supply the entire population. Farmers would still be working. It would subvert popular suppor of the imperialist government within a year, I'm sure. There would be minimal fighting. Sleeper agents could have been inserted to organize an uprising when the time came and to report back to the American fleet letting them know when to actually invade in full force (to coincide with the uprising). There would not have been mass starvation, pestilence, and plague. That's just BS.
Huh -- funny -- all kinds of folks keep saying the sanctions on Iraq before the 2003 invasion killed hundreds of thousands...guess we were much better at that sort of thing in 1945... Yes, yes, airdop food and medical supplies -- population of Japan in 1945 was about 71 million. Easily done. Won't have to feed and medicate them all -- maybe just 35 million.

Minimal fighting? Sleeper agents? A bunch of white guys organizing the Japanese to oppose the Emperor?

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:42 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
Which one would have produced more casualties, realistically?
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Coito ergo sum » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:45 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
We don't know if a meeting over sushi and saki wouldn't work to get things sorted either, but we have a pretty good idea of what the likely result of such a meeting would have been.

It was not exactly unknown what the costs in civilian lives of a protracted blockade would be. The idea that we had some capacity to encircle Japan and just sort of "wait them out" without harming civilians is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking ... welcome to fantasy disco, man.

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Coito ergo sum » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:46 pm

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
Which one would have produced more casualties, realistically?

Ooo ooo me me!!

We don't know, because we have no idea what would have happened had we tried something else. Therefore, whatever we did was wrong.

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by klr » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:47 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
Well, actually it was tried up to a point. The Japanese home islands were already effectively cut off from the rest of the Japanese empire. Nothing or nobody could get in or out. No food, no fuel, no raw materials, no troops. To try and avoid starvation (at least for the military) the Japanese wanted to transfer all the rice they could from Korea, but the US Navy blockade prevented that. Otherwise, the Korean people would have starved in their millions.

The US military was on the point of stepping up the blockade by targeting coastal shipping and the rail network even more than they already were doing. As the Japanese did not have a proper road network at the time, this would have caused mass starvation all across the country. Aside from the questionable ethics of such a strategy (on top of the existing blockade and mass fire-bombing), there's still no guarantee at all the leadership would have caved in quickly. It's very likely they wouldn't have done so at all, not even if there were millions of dead civilians in the streets.
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:49 pm

Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
"If we are prepared to sacrifice 20,000,000 Japanese lives in a special attack effort, victory shall be ours!" Admiral Onishi Tokijiro, AFTER Nagasaki.
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by klr » Thu Jan 10, 2013 4:55 pm

Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
Clinton Huxley wrote:We don't know if a protracted blockade or other strategy might have worked, as it wasn't tried.
"If we are prepared to sacrifice 20,000,000 Japanese lives in a special attack effort, victory shall be ours!" Admiral Onishi Tokijiro, AFTER Nagasaki.
Yup, I'd just remembered that one. And the radio broadcast a day or two later telling people they'd have to chew grass and live in the fields, or words to that effect.
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Coito ergo sum » Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:07 pm

Apparently the US purposefully refrained from bombarding the emperor's palace.

The emperor gave a speech to have the Japanese military stand down, but he did not use the Japanese word for surrender, not even once. He simply said that the war had taken a turn "not to Japan's advantage" and that the people needed to endure the unbearable. LOL -- supremacists 'til the end.

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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by MrJonno » Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:29 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:Apparently the US purposefully refrained from bombarding the emperor's palace.

The emperor gave a speech to have the Japanese military stand down, but he did not use the Japanese word for surrender, not even once. He simply said that the war had taken a turn "not to Japan's advantage" and that the people needed to endure the unbearable. LOL -- supremacists 'til the end.
Didnt some parts of the Japanese miltary try and kill the emperor to prevent the surrender. As for the wording who actually wrote it wouldnt surprise me if it was written by the US. Either way by not using the word surrender it made it possible
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Re: Untold History of the United States

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:31 pm

MrJonno wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:Apparently the US purposefully refrained from bombarding the emperor's palace.

The emperor gave a speech to have the Japanese military stand down, but he did not use the Japanese word for surrender, not even once. He simply said that the war had taken a turn "not to Japan's advantage" and that the people needed to endure the unbearable. LOL -- supremacists 'til the end.
Didnt some parts of the Japanese miltary try and kill the emperor to prevent the surrender. As for the wording who actually wrote it wouldnt surprise me if it was written by the US. Either way by not using the word surrender it made it possible
Not kill, but control. The Japanese government for centuries had been legitimate if they controlled the Emperor.
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