re:Its not surprising that a neocon misses that import since number of deaths seems to be a popular way for you to measure success or failure.
Personally - lives saved is a better measuring stick.
In his personal diary, Truman wrote, “General Marshall told me that it might cost half a million American lives to force the enemy’s surrender on his home grounds.”
Do you really believe this nonsense? Of course, Marshall said that to Truman. That's what Truman wanted to hear.
However, that number was from someone's fantasy. In four years of war, the US military sustained losses of 405,000 from all theaters of that war. To suggest that bringing Japan to her knees would have required another half million American deaths is ludicrous. As it was Japan was on her knees and her allies had already capitulated. Even bombing runs similar to the ones in Dresden would have been preferable to the atomic bomb.
This estimate was based on previous battle figures at Okinawa, where Americans suffered 50,000 casualties despite outnumbering the Japanese by two and a half to one. Indeed, if Truman opted to invade Japan, the total number of American and Japanese casualties would possibly be in the millions.
Why stop at millions? Billions might have died had we tried to bring Japan to her senses the conventional way.
Although the bomb took 150,000 Japanese lives, the number of casualties would have been far greater had an invasion been executed.
The possible range of deaths given for Hiroshima alone was 70K to 200K......and that was for just the actual event. [Please note its American estimates that are at the lower end of the range.] Many thousands more died from radiation burns and sickness in the months that followed.
In 1985, in a special broadcasting the fortieth anniversary of the bombings, ABC’s Ted Koppel claimed: “What happened over Japan…was a human tragedy…But what was planned to take place in the war between Japan and the United States would almost certainly have been an even greater tragedy.” When compared to a land invasion, the atomic bomb certainly saved far more Japanese lives than would a land invasion.<?I>
What land invasion? We didn't do a land invasion with Germany. Such nonsense. If push came to shove, bombing runs like Dresden would have done the trick. Dropping a nuke would not have been necessary. Dropping two nukes on Japan was a human tragedy and something that Americans should not be proud of.
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