Nuclear weapons

Started by Eamonnca1, August 05, 2020, 06:53:09 PM

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Eamonnca1

There's an op-ed in today's LA Times that confirms what I've known for a while: Japan had been trying their damndest to surrender all summer and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a completely unnecessary war crime.

QuoteOp-Ed: U.S. leaders knew we didn't have to drop atomic bombs on Japan to win the war. We did it anyway

By GAR ALPEROVITZ AND MARTIN J. SHERWIN
AUG. 5, 20203:05 AM

At a time when Americans are reassessing so many painful aspects of our nation's past, it is an opportune moment to have an honest national conversation about our use of nuclear weapons on Japanese cities in August 1945. The fateful decision to inaugurate the nuclear age fundamentally changed the course of modern history, and it continues to threaten our survival. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock warns us, the world is now closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since 1947.

The accepted wisdom in the United States for the last 75 years has been that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later was the only way to end the World War II without an invasion that would have cost hundreds of thousands of American and perhaps millions of Japanese lives. Not only did the bombs end the war, the logic goes, they did so in the most humane way possible.

However, the overwhelming historical evidence from American and Japanese archives indicates that Japan would have surrendered that August, even if atomic bombs had not been used — and documents prove that President Truman and his closest advisors knew it.

The allied demand for unconditional surrender led the Japanese to fear that the emperor, who many considered a deity, would be tried as a war criminal and executed. A study by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Command compared the emperor's execution to "the crucifixion of Christ to us."


"Unconditional Surrender is the only obstacle to peace," Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired Ambassador Naotake Sato, who was in Moscow on July 12, 1945, trying to enlist the Soviet Union to mediate acceptable surrender terms on Japan's behalf.

But the Soviet Union's entry into the war on Aug. 8 changed everything for Japan's leaders, who privately acknowledged the need to surrender promptly.

Allied intelligence had been reporting for months that Soviet entry would force the Japanese to capitulate. As early as April 11, 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Joint Intelligence Staff had predicted: "If at any time the USSR should enter the war, all Japanese will realize that absolute defeat is inevitable."

Truman knew that the Japanese were searching for a way to end the war; he had referred to Togo's intercepted July 12 cable as the "telegram from the Jap emperor asking for peace."

Truman also knew that the Soviet invasion would knock Japan out of the war. At the summit in Potsdam, Germany, on July 17, following Stalin's assurance that the Soviets were coming in on schedule, Truman wrote in his diary, "He'll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about." The next day, he assured his wife, "We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"

The Soviets invaded Japanese-held Manchuria at midnight on Aug. 8 and quickly destroyed the vaunted Kwantung Army. As predicted, the attack traumatized Japan's leaders. They could not fight a two-front war, and the threat of a communist takeover of Japanese territory was their worst nightmare.

Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki explained on Aug. 13 that Japan had to surrender quickly because "the Soviet Union will take not only Manchuria, Korea, Karafuto, but also Hokkaido. This would destroy the foundation of Japan. We must end the war when we can deal with the United States."

While a majority of Americans may not be familiar with this history, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., states unambiguously on a plaque with its atomic bomb exhibit: "The vast destruction wreaked by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the loss of 135,000 people made little impact on the Japanese military. However, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria ... changed their minds." But online the wording has been modified to put the atomic bombings in a more positive light — once again showing how myths can overwhelm historical evidence.

Seven of the United States' eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy's vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry "Hap" Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.

No one was more impassioned in his condemnation than Leahy, Truman's chief of staff. He wrote in his memoir "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 .... In being the first to use it we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."

MacArthur thought the use of atomic bombs was inexcusable. He later wrote to former President Hoover that if Truman had followed Hoover's "wise and statesmanlike" advice to modify its surrender terms and tell the Japanese they could keep their emperor, "the Japanese would have accepted it and gladly I have no doubt."

Before the bombings, Eisenhower had urged at Potsdam, "the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

The evidence shows he was right, and the advancing Doomsday Clock is a reminder that the violent inauguration of the nuclear age has yet to be confined to the past.

Gar Alperovitz, author of "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb," is a principal of the Democracy Collaborative and a former fellow of King's College, Cambridge. Martin J. Sherwin is a professor of history at George Mason University and author of the forthcoming "Gambling With Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette From Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis." Historians Kai Bird and Peter Kuznick contributed to this article.

macdanger2

I always wondered why they dropped the second one, surely the first sent a sufficient message (to the Japanese and others). What was the purpose of repeating it?

BennyCake

"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

macdanger2

Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

I read "Shake hands with the devil" recently, it's about the Rwandan genocide written by the commander of the UN mission there. He said that some US civil servant was questioning him about a possible intervention and the pros/cons of it - their calculations valued the life of one US soldier to the lives of 80000 Rwandans

J70

#4
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

J70

Quote from: macdanger2 on August 05, 2020, 08:22:22 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

I read "Shake hands with the devil" recently, it's about the Rwandan genocide written by the commander of the UN mission there. He said that some US civil servant was questioning him about a possible intervention and the pros/cons of it - their calculations valued the life of one US soldier to the lives of 80000 Rwandans

Like it or not, that was the political reality in the US in the 90s, especially following Somalia. Public simply didn't want US troops being sent on these missions.

Air strikes in the Balkans later that decade were one thing; sending soldiers in on the ground was totally different.

Until September 11th, of course.

Boycey

Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:37:33 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

Good man J70 that's more or less word for word what I wanted to say. It's long been up for debate about the need/desire to drop those bombs and I don't think one more article after 75 years will answer the question any more definitively

Eamonnca1

#7
Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:37:33 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

What is the purpose of these questions? Nuclear weapons are even more indiscriminate than the holocaust. A nuclear warhead doesn't demand to see you papers and confirm that you're a Jew before detonating, they just incinerate all men, women, children, and babies within their kill radius. Yes, I think the use of nuclear weapons is pretty damn evil and hard to top. Maybe Genghis Khan came close when he massacred entire cities, if you're looking for a historical parallel.

J70

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on August 05, 2020, 09:05:20 PM
Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:37:33 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

What is the purpose of these questions?

Benny Cake's bolded statement.

Eamonnca1

I've re-read and I see it now. I've modified my response.

J70

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on August 05, 2020, 09:05:20 PM
Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:37:33 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

What is the purpose of these questions? Nuclear weapons are even more indiscriminate than the holocaust. A nuclear warhead doesn't demand to see you papers and confirm that you're a Jew before detonating, they just incinerate all men, women, children, and babies within their kill radius. Yes, I think the use of nuclear weapons is pretty damn evil and hard to top. Maybe Genghis Khan came close when he massacred entire cities, if you're looking for a historical parallel.

If we are talking barbarity, it all depends on what parameter you want to use.

To me, I would sure as hell rather die an instantaneous death from a nuclear blast than be rounded up, marched to a large pit already filled with bodies and made stand on the edge, waiting my turn, holding my baby, or lie down on the other corpses before being shot (this was the fate of thousands and thousands at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen). Obviously, a nuclear blast has major implications for those who survive the initial blast, but then again, so does any bombing, not least the firebomb campaigns.

Personally, the only moral issue at play for me is how genuinely Truman and his advisors believed the atom bomb was necessary to end the war quickly and not just a shot across the bow of Stalin. If it was to save the lives of American soldiers, I have no issue with that.

People who know a hell of a lot more than I do have been arguing about this for decades, and probably will for many more.

macdanger2

Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:47:24 PM
Quote from: macdanger2 on August 05, 2020, 08:22:22 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

I read "Shake hands with the devil" recently, it's about the Rwandan genocide written by the commander of the UN mission there. He said that some US civil servant was questioning him about a possible intervention and the pros/cons of it - their calculations valued the life of one US soldier to the lives of 80000 Rwandans

Like it or not, that was the political reality in the US in the 90s, especially following Somalia. Public simply didn't want US troops being sent on these missions.

Air strikes in the Balkans later that decade were one thing; sending soldiers in on the ground was totally different.

Until September 11th, of course.

That's pretty much what he said, there was no appetite for getting involved after Somalia. Still pretty stark to hear the value of lives calculated out like that though

RadioGAAGAA

#12
There is another aspect to it that was probably of consideration.

It was feared - rightly or wrongly, but the American psyche regarding communism is well known for being... eccentric - that the Soviets might get ambitions of taking over the rest of Europe. Therefore, the thought train being that dropping the two bombs would put all that to bed.


Who knows, perhaps ending WW2 with the two bombs stopped WW3 from starting a few years later.


edit: typo
i usse an speelchekor

BennyCake

Quote from: J70 on August 05, 2020, 08:37:33 PM
Quote from: BennyCake on August 05, 2020, 08:08:53 PM
"We'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed!"


That sentence stuck out for me. Think of the numbers that won't be killed. But 135,000 Japanese lives? They obviously didn't matter!

Those bombs were the most evil, barbaric act in history. Absolutely disgusting.

Were they more evil or barbaric than the fire bombing of Tokyo or Dresden?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the actions of the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar or numerous other eastern European locations, forcing people to line up, packed into their pit graves before being shot; mothers to hold their children up to be shot first; and teenage girls to strip naked and run the gauntlet on their way to the pit for execution?

Were they more evil or barbaric than the industrialized murder of millions of Jew, Roma and other "undesirables" in the NAZI extermination camps?

None of them were good, but as a single (well, double) act, it was just totally brutal. A total disregard for life on a scale probably never witnessed before or since. And the effects of those bombs are still going on, and will probably continue for generations, with deformities, illness, etc. As I say, none of them were good, but this one tops it for me as pure barbaric.

Having said that, if you were to go, instant vaporisation is probably a lot better than torture or burning to death.

Tony Baloney

There was a good article in one of the Sunday papers last weekend about nuclear weapons and it said that only 0.7% of the uranium payload fissioned (if that's a word) and it still managed to take out about 80000 people. Nagasaki was a plutonium based bomb. The fact that they dropped 2 different types in fairly sharp succession could be a sign of experimentation.