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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (26482)	4/26/2004 5:25:46 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

What about Tokyo? Interesting question. It might have let us get by with one bomb, which might have killed just as many people. Maybe, not sure what the population of Tokyo was after the firebombing. How about two nukes in unpopulated [but visible] areas and then the threat of a bomb on Tokyo? Does the emperor surrender then; is there still an attempted coup? Does the coup succeed? If the coup does succeed are the Japanese people loyal to an army that overthrew the emperor? To some extent, the argument made about the loss of life in an invasion supposes that the total head count of Hiroshima/Nagysaki wasn't the deciding factor for the emperor. You are claiming that the Japanese emperor would be willing to take far more casualities in an invasion. jttmab

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (26482)	4/27/2004 5:30:42 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

Re: What about Tokyo? Interesting question. It might have let us get by with one bomb, which might have killed just as many people. Curtis LeMay had firebombed Tokyo earlier in the summer of 1945 and the city had already suffered somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 murders/casualties in one night of total conflagration. So, Tokyo wasn't a particularly good test site for the effects of an atomic device. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had specifically been spared the devastation of earlier incendiary raids on Japan for the purpose of investigating the full effect of "the gadget" on intact civilizations. Needless to say, the atomic bombs were a complete success, i.e. civilization was complete unintact after contact. But, by then, Edward Teller was already laying the theoretical foundations for the even completer successes to come with thermonuclear devices. * Interesting factoid: Every second, the Sun produces as much energy as 10,000 average sized nuclear bombs. * Here are two highly recommended books on the Gadget and the creation of the thermonuclear age: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes amazon.com Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes amazon.com* I've read them both and found them highly illuminating for the general reader.