For All Opposed to the War

[jking84772]

Wow...see what happens when you get some sleep and work 8 hours..look at all the talking I've missed. But I still hear no constructive solutions to the problem.

If we are going down the path of stamping out violence, let's not forget to nuke child abusers, wife beaters, the Bloods and Crips, any other gang that kills people because they have been disrespected.

Maybe that is the problem, maybe we are using too broad a term when we say terrorist. How about we just try to stop anyone that advocates removing our society from the planet for starters.

Cold war, well yes, eventually talking ended that after 30 some odd years, or was it when the people finally got tired of no food, poor health care, everything that the government said it would provide but didn't.

Seems to me that the UN talked to Saddam for about 1/2 that time.

How about we just outlaw all religion. That would be cleaner than nukes. Ever since one man's opinion of God differed from another's, societies have fought and killed, all for the sake of "their" beliefs.

So many threads, so little time.

 

[magicmato]

Although I disagree with the premise as you do, I would like to see your sources for your statements.

Everything I have ever read on the subject was that the Japanese were NOT ready to surrender. These people looked upon their emporer as a God, it was a holy war for them. They would have viewed an invasion as an attack against their God - they would have defended them with everything and everyone they have including old men, children and women. And the propoganda they were using against us was so bad that some of the islands that we took had villages, mostly the women and children, committing suicide rather than come under the influence of the "American Devils".

Here are a few:

"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"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 that 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'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380

In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:

"...the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63

"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 because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. 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."

- William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 441.

MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: "...the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction.' MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."

William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964, pg. 512.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins, The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

 

[MassJester]

I'll agreee that Hezbollah was a poor example. But Iraq clearly is just another front in the war on terror. Saddam had numerous connections to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Its been well documented. The IRA arguement is a bit of a slippery slope, don't you think?

That's odd, I don't recall anything like that being well documented, and in fact Bin Laden and SH were at opposite ends of most issues. Could you point out where their cooperation has been well documented?

 

[What the Heck]

Here are a few:

Thanks. I'll give you the first two, although even though they were very highly placed officers, they were only two. The quotation you used for MacArthur would actually strengthen my argument. If you will notice the part:

He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it​

Because of their beliefs, they would have fought with sticks if they had to. It was their beliefs that allowed for Kamakazie (sp) pilots - the first suicide bombers perhaps? Just as this is a holy war for many of the fundamentalists, so was WWII for the Japanese.

If the Japanese were so ready to surrender, why did it take 2 bombs? Why didn't they surrender after the first? From what I understand, the plan to invade Japan had deathes in the 100,000 range for American troops - and that was for a quick campaign. We have been in Iraq for 4 years now with under 4,000 deaths. Imagine 25 times as many deaths in less than 4 months.

 

[magicmato]

Thanks. I'll give you the first two, although even though they were very highly placed officers, they were only two. The quotation you used for MacArthur would actually strengthen my argument. If you will notice the part:

He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it​

Because of their beliefs, they would have fought with sticks if they had to. It was their beliefs that allowed for Kamakazie (sp) pilots - the first suicide bombers perhaps? Just as this is a holy war for many of the fundamentalists, so was WWII for the Japanese.

If the Japanese were so ready to surrender, why did it take 2 bombs? Why didn't they surrender after the first? From what I understand, the plan to invade Japan had deathes in the 100,000 range for American troops - and that was for a quick campaign. We have been in Iraq for 4 years now with under 4,000 deaths. Imagine 25 times as many deaths in less than 4 months.

And yet, when surrender came, it was CONDITIONAL, not the unconditional surrender we demanded prior to the bombs. Did the bombs really make them surrender, you think? If they did, why did we relent and let them keep their imperial reign? If the bombs made them surrender, why did they not immediately give up their imperialism?

Sorry, but I do not agree with dropping nukes on anyone. If the nukes brought the end of the war, then we would have gotten an unconditional surrender, not the conditional one we wound up with. Did you fail to notice they still have an emperor? Everyone brings up how they would follow their emperor to death, yet they neglect to mention that they also followed him into peace. Why was a conditional surrender acceptable to us after we killed so many people and did so much ecological damage, but somehow it was NOT ok prior to that?

ETA: The reason they had not agreed to the "unconditional" surrender we were demanding was because they wanted to save face. Had we understood that and been willing to let them keep their emperor while we occupied them (as we did in the conditional surrender agreement formed after the bombs were dropped), there would have been no need to drop the bombs. That is why it is always best to try and understand your opponents instead of cowboying up and demanding that they do it your way or no way. Cultural differences can be very hard to overcome and are the reason we have so many consultants and specialists in the state department to advise our leaders of such differences. Sadly, too many of our leaders refuse to listen to them, it seems.

 

[What the Heck]

ETA: The reason they had not agreed to the "unconditional" surrender we were demanding was because they wanted to save face. Had we understood that and been willing to let them keep their emperor while we occupied them (as we did in the conditional surrender agreement formed after the bombs were dropped), there would have been no need to drop the bombs. That is why it is always best to try and understand your opponents instead of cowboying up and demanding that they do it your way or no way. Cultural differences can be very hard to overcome and are the reason we have so many consultants and specialists in the state department to advise our leaders of such differences. Sadly, too many of our leaders refuse to listen to them, it seems.

Well said.

My disagreement isn't whether we should use nukes now, but when we try to judge the past with todays ethics. We end up holding people to a set of standards that we have difficulty meeting.

 

[magicmato]

Well said.

My disagreement isn't whether we should use nukes now, but when we try to judge the past with todays ethics. We end up holding people to a set of standards that we have difficulty meeting.

I understand that and I agree. However, I just like to put in perspective that after the fact, many people were not as gung-ho about dropping the bomb as we have been told. Once they understood what they had done, I think most of the people at the top had some pause and had to reflect on whether it indeed was necessary.

As for now-a-days, I doubt anyone, in any government, is suicidal enough to launch a nuke. Bin Ladin? Maybe, but that is more of a suitcase bomb nuke than a nuke that any of the nuclear countries would use.

Why would no one use them? Because the moment one of us launches a nuke, every other country that has them will launch. It would be world destruction.

Honestly, does anyone really think that Russia will wait to see where the nuke is headed if Iran, NK, Israel or the US sends one off? Same for everyone else. The moment someone, anyone, sends off a nuke, the others will do the same. A very sobering and scary thought and probably the only thing that keeps power hungry countries like Iran and North Korea from launching an offensive. Self-preservation is a strong driving force for most people.