Kat wrote:
> I don't know much about this period, and most of what I *do* know came
> out of a Neal Stephenson book, so I can't really reply to the Japanese
> willingness to commit atrocities or surrender. I do know that a lot of
> people, including Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas McArthur, did not feel it
> was necessary to drop an atomic bomb on Japan, and frankly the whole
> thing smacks of revenge. (You bombed us- look at *our* bomb, you
> bastards!)
Kat, if you're able to get cable TV, you've got no excuse. The History
Channel shows WWII documentaries on an almost continuous basis. Public
libraries, bookstores and book-of-the-month clubs exist, and WWII has a
prominent place in any library's history section.
The Japanese fought bitterly on every island Allied forces invaded during
the Pacific campaign. Tens of thousands of Allied soldiers died on Iwo
Jima, Guadalcanal and Okinawa. Japanese soldiers retreated to caves and
fought from them until they were killed to the last man. Every indication
the Allies had was that the Japanese would do at least that on the Home
Islands. Intelligence reports clearly indicated this. The Japanese admit
it themselves, and possess a nice-sized archive of films of civilians
drilling with rifles and even spears to prepare for an invasion.
As far as atrocities go, the Japanese were pretty damn nasty when they
invaded China (Rape of Nanking, anyone?) the Philippines, Burma, Korea....
They still don't admit that in their history books, according to recent news
reports. Again, every bit of evidence we had was that, with the very
survival of their nation at stake, they'd stop at even less.
> However, that's a side point. I do feel that there are a few major
> problems to be addressed as far as "it's just a bomb, does it matter what
> kind of bomb?" goes.
The understanding Truman and military leaders had before Hiroshima was
indeed, "This is a big bomb. Where with conventional explosives, we'd have
been forced to use many bombing runs and thousands of bombs, we can use this
one big bomb and accomplish our goal - an end to this war."
> First, we bombed civilians. This is different than killing people in the
> heat of battle, or even than bombing military complexes; it is a
> distinctly evil act to kill non-combatants, something that has been
> accepted for hundreds of years before it was made into solid law. I
> assume there *were* major military installments in these cities, but
> still, the majority of those who died were civilians.
And every side in the war was guilty of that. In fact, the death of
civilians has *always* been a factor in war. It's only lately that we've
decided that it's perhaps *not* so nice to rape, plunder and kill people we
fight.
The Allies firebombed Dresden, bombing runs on Berlin were common, the
Germans bombed London and Coventry, the Japanese slaughtered tens of
thousands in Nanking, heck, the Japanese enslaved thousands of Korean,
Chinese and SE Asian women for use as "pleasure girls" by their troops.
Atrocities happened on all sides. This in no way exonerates anyone from
this, but I wonder why you're not as concerned about the rest of the evil
acts committed during the Pacifc War and so self-righteous about these two.
My previous post gave, I think, a good summation of the math that Truman and
his advisors are reported to have done before deciding to use Fat Man and
Little Boy. It wasn't an easy decision, and no one has claimed it was.
> Second, and perhaps more importantly, "salting the land" has been
> considered something of a no-no since Roman times- and dropping an H-bomb
> is major salt. We didn't just destroy those cities in a spectacular and
> especially deadly fashion, we killed off the fertility/livability of the
> land for a long time, not to mention affecting the survivors.
Did you know that both cities are still populated? I'd hardly say the earth
was salted. Yes, hundreds of thousands died. Yes, their descendants were
affected. What about the millions that there was every reason to believe
would die in an invasion? You're engaging in after-the-fact judgement, and
you're making silly talk. The options for ending the war at that point had
been reduced to two choices:
(1) Invade Japan, a la D-Day. The death toll on D-Day was high enough to
make strategists blanch at the thought of landing carriers on the coast of
Japan, and the willingness of the Japanese military to fight to the death
did not give much hope for easy fighting after that. Also, troops would be
fighting in hostile territory, and could therefore not count on support or
immunity from the local population in areas they occupied. The projected
losses, Allied and Japanese, ran into the millions. That's more than
hundreds of thousands.
(2) Drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps different choices could
have been made, and if there had been more time, perhaps they would have
been made. We can't say for sure. The simple math indicated fewer people
would die if we used these "atomic bombs", which scientists told us would be
more powerful than any bomb ever used before.
> I've just gone and found the Radiation Effects Research Organization
> website (http://www.rerf.or.jp/). According to this site, at least
> 150,000 people died in the bombings, and 280,000 more were believed to
> have been exposed. Many of these- exact numbers seem to be vague- have
> since died of cancer or leukemia. Children who were exposed in the womb
> show signs of lowered IQ and higher incidences of mental retardation.
>
> This ain't just another bomb, and it ain't a civilized weapon. I know it
> was during a war, but all the same, it was a nasty thing to do.
It's easy to sit in your comfortable home and judge the men who had to make
decisions that would cost thousands of lives no matter what the eventual
decision was. I think the fact that we haven't used atomic weapons since we
*saw* what they can do is a damn good sign that we learned something from
using them.
Adam C. Lipscomb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ# 32384792
