A-Fucking-Men.

Once you’ve justified the killing of civilians, even on the ludicrous and ahistorical pretext that we’re slaughtering civilians to avoid slaughetring civilians, you’ve ceased to be a human being.

Um, hello, am I talking to myself here???

We believe that a considerable portion of the Japanese population now consider absolute military defeat probably… An entry of the Soviet Union into the war would finally convince the Japanese of the inevitability of complete defeat.
U.S. British Combined Intelligence Committee

I’d refer you to Gar Alperovitz’s book “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bombâ€? , which exhaustively examines much of the primary documents.

Most U.S. citizens believe that our government conducted a rigorous cost-benefit analysis on whether or not to use nuclear weapons against Japan. Listed prominently on the benefit side was the belief that many lives would be saved that would otherwise be spent pounding Japan into submission via invasion. As horrific as nuclear holocaust was, the alternative, fighting Japan to the last man, would have been worse. The reality is that this was not at all a part of the decision making process at the time, according to the internal documentary record.

Alperovitz dissects the declassified internal documents, memorandum, notes, minutes, and personal journals of all relevant decision makers during the summer of 1945. He notes that all the top civilian and military planners knew that Japan was all but defeated and on the brink of surrender. He cites a number of intelligence reports, military reports, and the personal beliefs of high ranking politicians in the Truman administration. The only sticking point for Japanese surrender was ensuring Emperor Hirohito, a demigod-like figure to the Japanese, would not be prosecuted in war crimes trials. Virtually all U.S. planners advocated and recognized that dropping the term “unconditional surrender� from U.S. demands and explicitly allowing for Hirohito to remain on the throne would immediately end the war.

The U.S. had cracked the Japanese encryption codes and had numerous transmissions from highly placed Japanese officials, including Hirohito, to other Japanese and the Russians indicating they were ready to surrender and acknowledging their defeat. Many military planners in the U.S. knew that Japan would surrender without an invasion because they were so devastated by aerial bombing and embargo. Nor did the Japanese harbor any pretenses about holding on to their acquired territory.

One common misconception about the Japanese was that they were going to fight to the last man, ensuring heavy casualties on all sides. The allies knew that this was only true if the Japanese thought Hirohito would be killed or imprisoned. On several occasions, they offered to surrender immediately if Hirohito would remain unharmed.

So what was the decision to drop the bomb based on if not on saving massive amounts of casualties? Alperovitz’s narrative details the geo-political factors involved. The allies were already looking ahead to the post war period and reasoned that the game at that point was minimizing the influence and power of the Russians in the aftermath of the war. (Truman, the noted poker player, called it a “royal flush.”) The British, U.S., and Russia were already dividing up the world, the U.S. wanted to keep Russia from having any “legitimate” claims in East Asia. It would also be an incredible show of force to use as leverage against the Russians elsewhere and serve as a frightful reminder of who had the decisive military advantage. Russia was planning to declare war on Japan in mid August; we dropped the bombs in the first week of August.

Heh. Not to mention the problems inherant in defining race.

– George Carlin

And it’s so so long between elections.

I’m loathe to question free lance writer and graphic designer Warner Todd Huston’s definition of “standard war stuff,” but the war on the Eastern Front was anything but standard:

The Eastern Front was unparalleled for its high intensity, ferocity, and brutality. The fighting involved millions of German and Soviet troops along a broad front. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of war in World War II, with over 5 million deaths on the Axis Forces; Soviet military deaths were about 10.6 million (out of which 3.6 million Soviets died in German captivity), and civilian deaths were about 14 to 17 million.

Perhaps some of Mr. Huston’s all night Civ games have approached this level of carnage, but fortunately the U.S. has never come close to having this many casualties in any of its wars.

Such a ridiculous comparison. WWII, a standard, symmetrical war, bears little resemblance to this threat we face today. The Russians were under arms facing Hitler. It wasn’t a “nice” war, surely, but it was a standard war none-the-less. Hitler invaded and the Russians resisted.

Standard war stuff, really.

This is a guy who, as a civilian, has had to make zero sacrifice in the “war on terror.” Undoubtedly, he expects not to have to make any sacrifice in the future. Yet what the Russians endured was “standard” as in a “fair fight.” This transcends the shake your head at how ignorant, small minded and self-absorbed some people are reaction. It is the sobering fact that because Mr. Huston has to live with the remote fear that he may suffer some loss at the hands of a terrorist he can justify the taking of how many innocents in Iraq and elsewhere? no price is too much for others to pay with their lives for a extra sliver of safety for Walter. And, sadly, we all know the many people who share this belief. It is pathological. You can blame the politicians, and it’s far more than just the president and his administration, but there’s no getting around the fact that every pro-war person knows or chooses to ignore what is done in our name. But for the fact that so many millions of Americans truly believe that their fear of a terrorist attack is not just going to happen, but happen to them to them, tens of thousands of innocents would not have died in the “war on terror.” So yeah, Mr. Huston, I’d say that overreacting is exactly what it is.

Well, back to your cheery debate. Where’s that href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFo8NGO4nTA”>Mr. Show link again?

For example: “Living Room” does not become “Living Loom”, nor does it become “Riving Loom”. It would be “Riving Room”. If we’re gonna make racist jokes, they should at least be accurate. No offense, Seb.

And it’s good to have you back.

And I would argue that Japanese opposition to nuclear power was rare and local until the 1990′s Monju and Tokaimura accidents. Now opposition is mostly about health and safety.

My recall’s a little fuzzy in that area (ask my about LDP postions and inter party factionalism) or the usage of Koenkai, etc.

Don’t see what that has to do with the suggestion that Japanese opposition to nuclear power is related to WW2 nuclear bombs, but what the hell, “What about those LDP positions and inter party factionalism?”

Socraticsilence,
You are mistaken about the circumstances that prevailed at the time. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in an effort to prevent a Soviet brokered surrender by the Japanese. Never neglect the political posturing for power. It often drives decisions to commit atrocities that ought to be unthinkable.

Well, what was stopping us from accepting the rather reasonable conditional surrender which the apanese were willing to make?

Oh, right, we had those bombs burning a hole in our pocket.

War crime.

And no, I’m not supporting the firebombing of Tokyo, or the firebombing of Dresden, or the use of Agent Orange in later Asian misadventures, or anything else you care to draw some sort of false comparison to.

So, are you a troll, or just an idiot?

Or is my sarcasm detector on the fritz?

Lawnguylander-
If Japan posed no military threat, what would your alternate solution to ending the war have been (honestly the only answer here that I’ve heard of as an alternate to the A-Bomb and outright invasion, is blockade, and quite frankly I’m unconvinced that blockading Japan would have succeeded in doing anything other than deepening the misery of the Japanese civilian population). Japan was not Iraq after the Gulf War, we as a nation, quite honestly couldn’t follow a policy of containment (which in the case of Iraq, worked, but also caused untold Human Suffering, not that what were doing now is better) , that is to say, I’m not sure how we could have achieved unconditional Japanese surrender, without either an invasion dropping the Atomic Bomb.

I do not believe that demonstrating that you have mastered a force of nature requires dropping the bomb in the midst of a city.

War crime.