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The bomb wasn't dropped on Japan for 'racist' reasons. That the US was racist and justified it's use in part for unstated racist reasons is partly true; the idea that it did so as the main motivating factor shows a misunderstanding of Imperialism. It would of used it on Berlin (or a smaller city) if it the US/UK had one, say, after D-Day. The fact that the US (and UK) is 'racist' doesn't really mean shit with regard to pounding an enemy into the dirt. It didn't stop from killing *millions* of German citizens in carpet bombing German cities with incendiaries (which is where Curits LeMay go the idea from to do the same to Japanese cities). How is using the a-bomb really that much different than burning to death millions of civilians with "convention means" (especially as far more died from the conventional means than the nuclear ones). I suspect the civilians being incinerated really didn't care about the distinction. The reason it used the A-Bomb in large part was to to stare down the USSR bent on invading northern Japan, let the world know the new boss is in town and to generally avoid further military actions like Operation Downfall (assuming one buys into the controversial belief that an invasion of Japan was imminent and the Japanese gov't was too divided to really offer unconditional surrender terms). By July 1st, over 1.5 million Red Army troops were transferred to the Soviet Far East for such a conflict (along with destroying the Japanese army in Manchuria, whiich it did handily). On other hand, it's likely the invasion would of come off rather badly given the situation the Red Army faced in such an invasion, which almost mirrored the problem with Germans had with regards to the total lack of dedicated landing craft AND some of the best and experienced Japanese troops were in Hokkaido waiting for the Russians should they have chosen to launch such an invasion. David ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
