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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (3569)	10/8/2001 6:20:50 PM
From: Jill	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

CB, if you automatically label any such view as "Hate America First" you will never have an honest assessment of the powers and virtues as well as weaknesses and flaws of your own country. Whatever you believe about Hiroshima, surely you agree we should have waited for a response before Nagasaki. Admitting mistakes is not the same as self-hatred. For instance, Joe Biden (whom I don't have any great fondness for) was very good today when interviewed by one of the networks. It's clear we made a mistake in abandoning Afghanistan in 1989. And he said so and said we would not make that mistake again. Of course, as far as mistakes go, it's easier to cop to benign neglect (???) than outright murder.

To: Ilaine who wrote (3569)	10/8/2001 6:51:01 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I do not see it so much as hate America, but as putting history in perspective and being honest about our own history; a history that has been sugar-coated by jingoistic propagandists masquerading as scholars.

To: Ilaine who wrote (3569)	10/9/2001 12:10:36 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Yes, in 1945 there was little evidence that the Japanese were trying to surrender, and lots of evidence that they were planning to fight to the death for the home islands as they had fought to the death for Saipan. The army estimated that it would take 1 million American casualties to subdue the Japanese home islands. The invasion of Kyushu was planned for 1946. Check out Paul Fussell's Thank God for the Atom Bomb for the views of a soldier who was there. He makes the case that by averting the invasion, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may very well have saved Japanese lives, let alone the many American lives it saved.

To: Ilaine who wrote (3569)	10/9/2001 1:58:29 AM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

At 11 o'clock in the morning of August 9, Prime Minister Kintaro Suzuki addressed the Japanese Cabinet: "Under the present circumstances I have concluded that our only alternative is to accept the Potsdam Proclamation and terminate the war." Moments later, the second bomb fell on Nagasaki. Oops! After the war, His Majesty the Emperor still sat on his throne, and the gentlemen who ran the United States had absolutely no problem with this. They never had. It is remarkable how blithely you dismiss the opinions of the American military leaders: General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of US Army forces in the Pacific, stated on numerous occasions before his death that the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary from a military point of view: "My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender." General Curtis LeMay, who had pioneered precision bombing of Germany and Japan (and who later headed the Strategic Air Command and served as Air Force chief of staff), put it most succinctly: "The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war." General Dwight Eisenhower: "The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing" Similarly, Admiral Leahy, Chief of Staff to presidents Roosevelt and Truman, later commented: It is my opinion that the use of the 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 ... 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. And the United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945 [the date of the planned American invasion], Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. Tom