I support a (leftistesque) show of faith, unilateral disarmement, I'm sure Islam won't hold any grudges, like they forgave Spain after that moors thing.
If we lived on the West Coast of Utopia I might agree w/destroying our entire nuclear arsenal, but we do not. The last time we tried something remotely analgous (I suppose the NAVY Quota's following WWI) it stopped nothing, and Japan completely ignored the treaty by the early-mid thirties. You need to live in reality. No matter how many times we sing Lennon's, "Imagine," there's still gonna be a guy/country/culture w/a weapon(s) somewhere that thinks that makes you a ***** and quite ripe for the picking and killing. If your fine w/being dead while holding on to utopian ideals, so be it, but I have always preferred T.R.'s "Walk softly, but carry a big stick," policy. Takes into account the needs and desires of others, w/o surrendering the ability to to defend oneself, proactively, or reactively. As for Japan getting a nuclear treatment Germany did not, I find that to be revisionist drivel. Germany fell before we had the ability to nuke them. Can't be sure whether we would have considering Germany was surrounded to the East by Russia and the Brits, and American's to the West and Germany was also a Hitler assasination from seaking terms during the last nine months of the war. The case was never so simple with Japan. If we had the power to nuke Germany in 1943 or 1944, I imagine it would have been done though certainty is of course impossible. There are no certainties here, but this argument of nuking having a purely racial motive (among others) has always struck me as the reaching of professor's w/an axe to grind looking for publicity for newly published works, and maybe a MacArthur Grant based on shock value rather than legit value.
Some things are messed up. There are some things that are morally deplorable. Far from a relativist opinion, it is an absolutist one. It is wrong to kill the innocent ("he was never known to hurt an honest man"). To kill the innocent in a way that can only be described as slow and painful, for reasons that are "relative" (pragmatic---so to speak) is absurd.
My comments regarding contemporary Japan is no reflection on the courage of your great uncle. Human spirit belongs to everyone.
Saw a 1944 memo at the Hiroshima museum. The target was always Japan due to fears that the Germans could uncover our nuclear secrets if the bomb was a dud. Our leadership apparently thought that Japanese were incapable of understanding nuclear technology.
Objection - assumes facts not in evidence. I'm just kidding - sorry, its late, and I spent way too much time working today. My point is that by 1944 there was no doubt that Germany would fall. Nor would there have been a real barrier to the invasion - until the siege of Berlin, Russia steadily and somewhat easily kept pushing Germany back. However, what if Stalingrad was not a Russian victory? Or what if the Germans had managed their breakthrough at Kursk? Would that same memo have been written? Especially considering we thought the Germans were fairly close to the bomb as well?
I'm from Hiroshima pref. and my grandaunt is a survivor of the A-bomb. All of her friends, relatives, and neighbors in the city have been killed. She was luckily out of town on that day and survived. When I saw her, understandably, she wasn't willing to talk about it, and so I just can't imagine what kind of experience it was. I've learned history at school, but it's nothing more than knowledge. I'd recommend anyone to visit Hiroshima. All I can say is ... I don't want to see this ever again, anywhere in the world. Talks of nuclear armament of Japan, and nuclear proliferation around the globe, make me very uncomfortable because it's such a personal issue for me.
Here's a link to the work behind the invasion of Japan. The 1 Million casualties expected would've been all the way up to the end of 1946. Approx 50,000 were casualties on Okinawa alone. The Americans were basically alone on this one. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8141/downfall.html What isn't mentioned in this thread was that the Japanese had plans to execute all military and civilian POW's they held in Japan and the occupied territories. I remember a interview done by CBC Radio with a Canadian who had been captured after the surrender of Hong Kong (2,000 Canadians had been involved in the defence of the territory). He stated that given the expected invasion casualties and the planned executions, the dropping of the bomb was the right thing. Today, it may not seem the right idea. Back then, what real choice was there? Not really anything else.
Who's having the most nuclear weapons in the world? It's like Warren Buffer said to you "I can't give up making money now, because taking into account the needs and desires of you wanting to be a rich man, you might be one day as rich as me" Nonesense, isn't it? To make this world safe out of another nuclear war disaster, USA, or Russia these "nuclear Warren Buffers" should tell tbe world "let's stop doing this together", and they should give out an example to show it by reducing its "weath". Let's face it, it's the nuclear threats of USA and Russia to the rest of the world prompt all other smaller countries develop nuclear weapons. Not the other way around. In this context, USA and Russia are bad guys who make the future of the world unsafe. Shame on Bush to make this worse.
I disagree, almost entirely with you. My only line of agreement is in that I'm a bit worried about Russia. Organized Crime has it's hand in nearly everything in Russia and I sometimes wonder if it's only a matter of time until one of their fully functional nukes is sold to the highest non-state bidder. As for other countries getting nukes to protect themselves against the USA and Russia, couldn't disagree more. Outside of the European states who did so both for independence and to defend themselves against the Soviet Union, virtually every other state, China, N. Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel and I believe S. Africa (any others?) did so in order to maintain first and retaliatory strike capability against neighbors (N. Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel) . China simply did so to maintain total independence, and S. Africa's efforts are utterly baffling to me, perhaps to insure that they decided if, when and how their countries internal politics were handled? I've never been a big fan on Bush on virtually any level but I don't have many if any issues w/his nuke concerns. Are you angry about him turning away from the ABM Treaty, or suggesting that we should research further into deep bunker busting nukes or both? My only concern with abandoning the ABM Treaty is that it appears impractical considering that our threats, at least this time, would be more likely to use suitcase nukes rather than air-delivered nukes (although the inept handling of air security at Reagan's funeral suggest that that might not be true). Submarine based nuke attacks might be possible and would come with some degree of possible deniability.
grandinquisitor, eliminating nuclear weapons world wide is an international peace effect. Do you agree with that? There is no way that USA can do that alone, especially by the Bush style of bullying. The world has to come to a consensus, which is - nuclear weapons are dangerous for human beings, nuclear weapons are counter-productive to human well beings because resources are wasted. USA should be the leader of carrying out such international effect. The wrong headed Bush policy did the opposite - to produce more, and as consequence, prompted other countries to produce more on such weapons - which is totally harmful and selfish to the well beings of the world community. In that context, USA under Bush contributes nothing to world peace. The worst president ever.
Sorry; I’ve been offline…the campus building where the networking is housed was having work until 8PM this evening…sorry for my late participation… (For those interested in the origin of a particular quote/source, inquire in the thread below, and I’ll respond with the source in due course…but to footnote my posts seemed a bit much…) This opinion as retort, based upon the six or seven books I have on the subject, the countless references those books make to primary material which I of course have not seen, and my own sensibility regarding the Jonathan Schell-like sensibility that murderous response, couched in whatever notion of defensive causation, fails itself, finds the bearing of almost perfect, righteous fruit in the use of S-1, or the atomic bomb, on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In aping and, well, let’s be frank, outright whoring, of the content framework of much of the work that I’ve read, Part One of this will, attempt to disabuse you of the notion that the use of S-1 was anything but a choice among many choices, all of which were leading to the end of the War in the Pacific. Part Two of this will explore the process and enduring nature of myth and myth-making, and how the myth, the foundational untruth surrounding the first use of atomic weapons is wholly reflective of the dual nature of the American mind; courage in the face of perceived horror, myth in the face of knowable truth. As you read this, reflect on this dual-mind process as it works its way around the various studies and pronouncements on 9/11 and World War III, oops, I mean the “War on Terror.” We are repeating the same mistakes, and will be forced to learn the same lessons…on e of the hallmarks of psychosis. Or maybe we won’t…if our myth-making power is as potent over this new “ism” as is was over things like the deployment of S-1, then maybe we’ll ride off into the post-nuclear sunset and aim toward the pearly gates never facing the truth about ourselves. Sadly, that will be the hallmark of the American Essence, right when, due to our myth, we think the exact opposite of ourselves. Irony, and ignominy…we sentence ourselves to both. PART ONE A few years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, Admiral William D. Leahy went public with this: It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children… Well, who was Admiral Leahy; a player, or some Admiral in Omaha running paper-shuffling for the duration? Well, not only had the five-star Leahy presided over the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had also been admired enough by Churchill to preside over the Combined American-British Joint Chiefs of Staff; he had simultaneously been chief of staff to the CINC, serving Rossevelt in that capacity from 1942-1945 and Truman from 1945-1949. HE was promoted to key, central positions of within the circle of decision-making after the war had begun. He was, in everyone’s estimation, one of the men who sought to have around you, to conference with, when you were in the midst of conflict. He was a good friend of Truman’s and the two men liked and respected each other; the public criticism was hardly personal. A similar line of thought was publicly admitted to by Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force who directed British and American operations against Hitler – and also, subsequently, obviously, President of the U.S. himself. Shortly after his famous Farewell Address criticizing the “military-industrial complex,” Eisenhower also went public with this statement on the Hiroshima bombings: [Recalling the 1945 moment when Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who we shall engage with fervor later on, informed him that the atomic bomb would be used against Japanese cities:] During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face.’… What has caused these two men, leaders of men, to break the unwritten rule regarding discretion and silence about controversial matters about which they have special knowledge? Well, they were not the only military figures who broke that rule, as we shall explore. More importantly, less than a year after the bombings an extensive official study by the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey published its conclusion that Japan would likely have surrendered in 1945 without atomic bombing, without a Soviet declaration of war, and without an American invasion. Furthermore, in refutation of the myth that was beginning to spring up surrounding the employment of S-1 saving thousands, if not millions of lives, the report demonstrated how nearly 5,000 American lives were lost in-between the time when a Japanese surrender could have been actualized and should have been attempted, and the resultant end of the war. In the end, I think that I will offer two things: that government deceit (as reflected in the S-1 employment), even by good men, is hardly a new thing. And, two, that these were, in fact, “good men.” None of the officials involved in this nightmare had evil intentions. Gar Alperovitz, in his book, encapsulates this perfectly: …What can be said of them, I believe, is that some became so taken by the power the atomic bomb seemed to give them to do good (as they defined it) that they seem to have gotten carried away. Stimson put his finger on a key point when he privately observed to his colleague (Acting Secretary of State) Joseph Grew that they were all ‘very fine men’ – but that they ‘should have known better…’ The Decision We must clarify what is in dispute, and what is not. There is no longer serious dispute about many of the basic elements surrounding the decision to use the atomic bomb. It is well understood, for example, that Japan was in dire straits long before the war ended – and, significantly, that Russia (which from 1941 on had maintained a neutral stance towards Japan) was scheduled to enter the fray sometime in early August 1945. It is known that a debate occurred within the U.S. government over whether to allow Japan to keep its Emperor – and that long before the atomic bomb was used, many officials believed a clearly expressed decision to do so would be likely to produce a surrender. There is also no dispute (Why am I underlining these issues? Because if dispute is launched at these fundamental elements, I’m not going to respond to them: I’m going to refer you to the approximately 150 works, from all over the spectrum of serious political scholarship, that establish agreement on these fundamentals, due to, in the main, primary sources like diaries and letters and memos written at the time) that in May 1945 a high-level group of Presidential advisers – The Interim Committee – made recommendations as to how and when the atomic bomb should be dropped. Finally, there is no dispute that the final decision to go forward occurred in July 1945 while President Truman was in Potsdam meeting with Churchill and Stalin. In terms of the decision to employ S-1, it seems then that the most important issue is whether or not it was understood before S-1 was used that the war with Japan could have been ended by other means. Thus, questions: (1) To what degree was the president advised – and to what degree did he understand – that a clarification of the officially stated demand for “unconditional surrender” specifying that Japan could keep its Emperor would be likely to end the war? (2) To what degree was the president advised – and to what degree did he understand – that the force of a Russian declaration of war might itself bring about an early end to the fighting? Japan’s Decline...coming tomorrow.
read "the rape of nanking" the next time you start feeling sorry for the japanese. people are utterly ignorant of just how vile an enemy japan was. that is because most dumb americans, if you say "ww2," and "atrocities" to them will immediately blurt out "nazis," or "hitler." they have little if any clue about the extent of japanese atrocities in ww2.
Gosh. How stupid of us, associating World War II atrocities with Hitler. Please never agree with me on anything ever again.
the point was that very few people are aware of the extent of japanese crimes against humanity from 1931 to 1945. as for using the atomic bomb on civilians- what is the material difference between dropping on a bomb on hiroshimA and setting a large area of tokyo and dresden, just for examples, on fire with incendiaries? cities were gratuitously and frankly savagely bombed throughout ww2.
Japan’s Decline Among historians of WWII it is now common knowledge in the field that Japanese power disintegrated rapidly in the spring and summer of 1945 – that from the early months of that year, their defeat was certain. Robert J.C. Butow describes the situation in his work: …the scales of war has been tipped so steeply against the Japanese that no counterweights at their disposal could possibly have balanced them. Germany, which for the Japanese had been a seemingly invincible first line of defense, was facing inevitable destruction; the defense perimeter that the Japanese had created far out beyond their island base had been cracked and deeply penetrated; worst of all, Japan’s military potential was dropping rapidly with her industrial capacity, as American submarines and planes cut the last of her economic lifelines to the outside world and great aerial armadas began the methodical destruction of her cities. The Pacific War had initially moved relatively slowly, as Rossevelt gave priority to the European struggle with Hitler. The now-famous (infamous?) battles – Midway: June 1942; Guadalcanal: August-November 1942; New Guinea: September 1942-April 1944; Marianas: June-August 1944 – along with the U.S. Navy slowly tightening its stranglehold on Japanese shipping – were drastic and siginificant, but far different from what was to come. Why? The fall of Saipan, Tinian and Guam in late summer 1944 provided bases which brought the home islands within much better B-29 bombing range. In fact, given these happenings and events, it was in September, 1944, that Lt. Gen George C. Kenney, Commander of Air Forces in the South-west Pacific, was able to tell General “Hap” Arnold, Commander of the Army Air Forces (and celebrated human precursor to the USAF…trust me, I know…lol): …The situation is developing rapidly, and thee are trends which indicate that the ****** is not going to last much longer. His sea power is so badly depleted that it is no match for any one of several task forces we could put into action. His air power is in a bad way. He has a lot of airplanes – probably more than he had a year ago – but he has lost his element, flight, squadron and group leaders and his hastily trained replacements haven’t the skill or ability or combat knowledge to compete with us… Without the support of his sea power and air power his land forces cannot do anything except hold out in isolated, beleaguered spots all over the map until bombs, bullets, disease and starvation kill them off… On November 24, the war was brought home to millions of Japanese when the Nakajima Aircraft works in the suburbs of Tokyo were struck. A few months later the firebombing of Tokyo (March 9-10, 1945) produced a military and human catastrophe. Some sixteen square miles of one of the world’s most densely packed residential districts was completely burnt out, and at least 84,000 people were killed in the firestorm; total losses were numbered at upwards of 120,000 people. With the collapse of Iwo Jima and the occupation of Okinawa, fighter support now went with bombers and three USMC and four Army divisions controlled the gateway to the home islands. At this time too, the Russians signalled the likely end of their neutrality, an overwhelmingly significant move in relation to the employmenr of S-1 that I shall address later. The Koiso government, only nine months old, collapsed. An aging Admiral, known primarily for his moderation, Baron Kantaro Suzuki, took over amid growing chaos. So the scene, the picture is set in the truth of the matter, but the question remains: What was known within the U.S. government at the time – and, specifically, how much did top officials understand the meaning both of particular developments and, equally important, of the trajectory and developing trend of events? In other words, history must give U.S. gov’t officials a two-tier benefit of the doubt; One surrounding the reality and veracity of the actual information they had at their disposal at the time, and secondly regarding their ability and success at analysing that data and coming up with one, or more than one, conclusion with regard to it. As you’ll see, even with that dual-layered mechanism built into this critique, the U.S. still made THE morally abhorrent decision of the century, and maybe of all time…’they should have known better.’ But I digress…we were talking about what the U.S. knew about Japan’s plummet… Although most of the American public and servicemen in the field were led to envisage a long and fierce battle – and an invasion – now, sixty years later, we know a great deal more about both what was actually happening AND what was known by Washington. Clearly, Japan was defeated and preparing to surrender before the atomic bomb was used. Though the question of timing was in dispute, it is also certain that this was generally understood in the U.S. government at the time. I will share a smattering of the overwhelming documentation that demonstrates this knowledge and understanding, and can provide more if need be: - Shortly after the Suzuki gov’t took over, a confidential internal U.S. assesement by OSS concluded: Admiral Suzuki stands a world apart from the Kwangtung Army faction which has exercised a paramount influence in Japanese politics since the 26 Feb 1936 military revolt…Suzuki’s appointment has all the appearance of a stop-gap arrangement, an effort to by-pass these extremists and yet provide a new political arrangement which can lay the basis for peace negotiations if possible. - The JIC of the Joint Chiefs, right about the same time: With respect to essential raw materials for her war industries, Japan is even more dependent than Great Britian upon imports from overseas…Due to the shortage of ocean shipping, Japan’s main rail lines are already overburdened, while motor transport is totally inadequate…The continued heavy destruction of machinery and equipment will make it impossible for Japan to replace heavy losses with her existing or potential machine tool ad heavy equipment industry…Under these circumstances the Japanese “will” to continue the war may be expected to weaken progressively… Don’t forget the major developments of early April that added to the crisis for Japan. That was when the USSR gave notice that it would not renew the Neutrality Pact with Japan. For the Japanese, if Stalin was no longer prepared to maintain neutrality once his vast armies had completed their work against Hitler, it would be disastrous; the Third Great Power of the Age would bring its force to bear alongside the US and Britain in an all-out assault on an already devastated Japan. Having broken Japanese diplomatic codes long before 1945, the U.S. was regularly reading top-secret high-level cable and radio traffic. An intercepted March 1 cable from Japan’s ambassador to Moscow, Naotake Sato, predicted that abrogation of the Neutrality Pact would plunge the Japanese into a state of ”unprecedented despair and despondency.” Before that, on April 24, Foreign Minister Shigenori cabled Sato instructing him to meet with Soviet FM Molotov: Since Japan is facing a grave situation which permits no delay, it is urgently necessary that we should sound out Russia’s real intentions [toward Japan] and exhaust all possibilities of bringing about a new turn in the situation… Other extraordinary events also rocked Japanese politics. Hitler’s suicide on April 30th and Germany’s surrender on May 8th were political and psychological body-blows to those in Japan arguing to continue the war. Italy had already been crushed. Now, with no Germany, there was no Axis. There was only one. Japan. A May 12 intercepted message revealed Sato cabling ”…once the enemy’s European air forces are transferred to the Pacific, our damages will exceed anything we can imagine, so that we may be facing the same situation that led to the downfall of Hitler Germany.” On May 15th, an internal memo from Maj. Gen. Clayton Bissell, assistant COS for Intel to Lt. Gen. John E. Hull, Asst. Chief of Staff for the War Department’s Operations Division (OPD), put it bluntly: The Japanese have been brought to a cold realization of their isolated position by the surrender of Germany, and evidence indicates that they are appalled by the destruction wrought on German cities. Conclusions, given these reports from the field, these intercepts, this analysis? Well, officials at various levels of government were drawing quite specific conclusions. In his May 15th memo, for instance, Bissell recommended an immediate surrender ultimatum. The Military Intel Division believed that with Germany’s collapse and Japan’s new fears of a Soviet onslaught, “the present moment will be an excellent one for an unconditional surrender demand upon Japan when she can be assured that surrender would be made to the Anglo-Americans only.” On June 1, the Office of War Information’s (OWI’s) Foreign Morale Analysis Division stressed that assuming that ”the military pressure is sustained, the psychological and social tensions now handicapping the Japanese will continue to mount in severity until they actively cripple the Japanese war effort.” Sounds like McCracken’s posts, but no, this is Japan, this is 1944-45, this is real analysis, real conclusions, real opportunities. As Japan lost Okinawa in bloody conflict, Japanese Army leaders called for a full-dress meeting of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. An appraisal lay before each chair in the meeting room, which said: The people are losing confidence in their leaders, and the gloomy omen of deterioration of public morale is present. The spirit of public sacrifice is lacking and among leading intellectuals there are some who advocate peace negotiations as a way out… There is also a strong possibility that a considerable portion of Japan’s various industrial areas will soon have to suspend operations for want of coal. From mid-year on, there will be a shortage of basic industrial salts, making it difficult for us to produce light metals, synthetic oil, and explosives. Henceforth, prices will rise sharply – bringing on inflation. This, in turn, will seriously undermine our wartime economy… So. Realities. Knowledge. Understanding. Analysis. Process. But how high? Within the United States, Secretary of War Henry Stimson provided this overview to President Truman in a top-secret memo written on July 2, less than two weeks after Okinawa’s collapse: We have the following enormously favourable factors on our side – factors much weightier than those we had against Germany: - Japan has no allies - Her navy is nearly destroyed and she is vulnerable to a surface and underwater blockade which can deprive her of sufficient food and supplies for her population. - She is terribly vulnerable to our concentrated air attack upon her crowded cities, industrial and food resources. - She has against her not only the Anglo-American forces but he rising forces of China and the ominous threat of Russia. -We have inexhaustible and untouched industrial resources to bring to bear against her diminishing potential. -We have great moral superiority through being the victim of her first sneak attack. In a similar vein, the Combined U.S.-British Intelligence Committee submitted a report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in the first week of July which stated: The Japanese ruling groups are aware of the desperate military situation… We believe that a considerable portion of the Japanese population now consider absolute military defeat to be probable. The increasing effects of sea blockade and the cumulative devastation wrought by strategic bombing, which has already rendered millions homeless and has destroyed from 25% to 50% of the builtup [sic] area of Japan’s most important cities, should make the realization increasingly general. As if to underscore the truth, in the first week of July the Japanese government publicly announced a 10% cut in staple rations, together with new plans to manufacture starch from potato vine and other plants. The Japanese Board of Technology stated that it would begin processing 150 million acorns as a substitute for rice. Radio Tokyo, perversely, began in all-out praise of acorns – and declared that a campaign to popularize the idea of eating acorns would follow. At the same time Radio Tokyo also noted that pine root oil was now being worked on as an experimental airplane fuel and that a “wooden aircraft production department” had been established in the Japanese Munitions Ministry. No question. Japan was in a plummeting decline and they knew it. No question. At all levels of government, we knew it. General – and Genuine – Efforts to End the War , coming Wednesday.
From a link a posted on page 5(ish): Admiral William D. Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an advocate of the blockade strategy, would later complain that "the Army did not appear to be able to understand that the Navy, with some Army air assistance, already had defeated Japan." The flaw in Leahy's argument was that the Japanese Imperial Army refused to accept the fact that it had lost the war, at least by the standard of unconditional surrender. That demand was completely unacceptable to an institution that ordered wounded soldiers to commit suicide rather than become prisoners of war. Aside from occupation duty, Army officers had immediate concerns on their mind. As military men, they judiciously planned for the worst. Privy to intercepts from the enemy army, as well as propaganda in Japanese newspapers, they heard their opponent planning to bloody the "evil and ugly [American] plutocracy" so badly that it would not "continue an unprofitable war" and would accept the Japanese empire, at least in northeast Asia. Consequently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) leaned towards the distinct possibility that "increasing and cumulative devastation to be wrought by prospective military operations may engender a more desperate and bitter resistance" within Japan. According to Marshall: "We bad to assume that a force of 2.5 million Japanese would fight to the death as they did on all those islands we [already] attacked. . . . We felt this despite what [Army Air Force] generals with cigars in their mouths [an obvious reference to Curtis LeMay] had to say about bombing the Japanese into submission. We killed 100,000 Japanese in one raid in one night, but it didn't mean a thing insofar as actually beating the Japanese." END citation Mel, is it not possible that there was simply a difference of opinion among the military experts? Clearly, the Navy and what became the modern Air Force believed Japan was beaten. From their perspective, they were: Japan didn't have enough ships and planes to resist U.S. domination of the Pacific. But is ti also not possible, that the Army believes (as it still does) that blockades and bombardments don't win the war. That you don't defeat an enemy until you've taken his land, and the only way to take land is with a 17 year old kid and his rifle? Truman, an Ex-Army officer, seems to have felt the same way, and was unwilling to pay the price in American lives that an invasion of the home islands would take.
All you have to do is look back at Germany in 1918, Stopper, to see the relevance of your point. Hitler and fellow sympathizers were able to make so much political hay because they were able to convince the greater populace that the German army wasn't beaten, but rather backstabbed by political cowards and monied radicals on the home front. The fact that no allied armies had conquered or even set foot upon Germany's pre-late 1914 borders when the German surrender occurred gave impetus to the Hitler's movement and to the fomenting of what was to become WWII. I am certain that the motivations behind the "unconditional surrender" strategy for the allies in WWII hinged on this historical fulcrum and formed the basis for the military strategy applied to the European and Pacific Theatres. Japan could not, and should not have been considered beaten until their last fighting strength (which included armed civilians, women and children that were being readied for the defense of the home islands) had essentially been completely and utterly annihilated, no room could be allowed for any hint that Japan was backstabbed at home by political forces. This strategy was successful. Japan who had fought a Civil War at home, had fought Russia, and fought China, Manchuria, Korea and the entirety of South East Asia from the late 19th century through 1945 has invaded no one since in the ensuing nearly sixty years. Germany who had fought and essentially beaten France in 1870 as Prussia, and again layed waste to Europe in WWI, and WWII has become, likewise, a peaceful nation that hasn't invaded anyone in the ensuing nearly sixty years. The strategy worked, the methods may have been at times horrific, but it worked far better than anything tried in the previous major wars that both Germany and Japan fought. There is bound to be dissent in any strategy, but the simple point of dissent, even by major figures in one government or it's military does not negate the value or wisdom of a strategy taken. Next someone will try and convince me that Halifax and his surrogate Peace through Italian channels w/Hitler made more sense than Churchill's stand against Hitler and the forces of Evil unleashed upon Europe. Dissenting opinions, no matter how prestigious the opinion holder, do not make arguments lies, or proponents of opposing strategies evil or wrong, they're dissenting opinions, worth considering, but certainly not automatically authoritative and conclusive.
Mel, I have read your posts with interest and thank you for them. But Japan could have surrendered at any time. After Tokyo (March 9-10). After Okinawa (June 22). After Hiroshima. Instead, it urged its citizens to eat acorns. In the face of an enemy that does not surrender, and following desparate fighting in Okinawa, given the facts of Japan's atrocities in WWII, and the fighting necessary to drive Japan from the south Pacific, what is the more humane strategic alternative to actually end the war? Perhaps you are saying (since I'm writing before Weds. edition) that attempts to elicit surrender were not strong enough. Perhaps that is true. But as far as military options go, I do not see a difference between firebombing Tokyo and nuking Hiroshima. Certainly it is unrealistic to expect an occupation of Japan or any other alternative end to the Pacific war without severe civilian casualties in Japan proper.