LOULAM1 Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysi...08-04-voa76.cfm Close to three hundred thousand people died when the bombs were dropped. One million American servicemen were spared death due to the surrender of the Japanese Empire and no invasion. There are scholars that say Japan would have surrendered anyway and it was not necessary to drop even the first of the two bombs. Truman understood American sentiment at the time and saved American lives. You now have people stating that Truman was a criminal and the poor Japanese did not have a chance to die honorably when the bombs were dropped. What of those who died on December 7th, 1941 and is it not amazing how history becomes twisted due to leftist academia. Imagine if the Japanese had the bomb in 1945? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Puddy Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 It's not just "scholars", it's from Japanese documents from the time. The bombs basically gave Japan a way to surrender without completely losing face. US atomic bombs were Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Puddy Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1543754,00.html The bomb didn't win it Dominick Jenkins Saturday August 6, 2005 The Guardian The idea that it was militarily necessary to drop the atomic bomb in 1945 is now discredited. The first exhaustive examination of Japanese, Soviet and US archives, by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, confirms the argument that Truman went ahead in order to get Japan to end the war quickly before the Soviet Union came into the Pacific war and demanded a say in Asia. The use of atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not provide the US with the free hand it had wanted and has proved disastrous for the world. It did not bring about surrender. With 62 Japanese cities destroyed by firebombs and napalm, Japan was not overwhelmed by the destruction of one more. The army minister, General Korechika Anami, told the supreme war council that he would fight on. What actually brought about surrender was the combination of the Soviet Union's entry into the war on August 8 and the US decision to let Japan retain the emperor. The use of the bomb led to an atomic arms race. Truman had been warned that the Soviet Union would interpret the use of the bomb as a threat but went ahead. After Stalin heard about the bomb from Truman at Potsdam, he said the US would try to use its atomic monopoly to force the Soviet Union to accept its plans for Europe, adding: "Well, that's not going to happen." The USSR exploded the atomic bomb in 1949 and the hydrogen bomb in 1953, far more quickly than Truman had believed possible. Truman also helped to start the cold war. With a working atomic bomb, he believed that the US no longer needed Soviet help in Europe to make sure there was no re-emergence of a German threat, and went ahead with rearming the former Nazi state. All of which took America and Russia a further step from wartime cooperation to the cold war. Max Hastings, on these pages last week, gave the impression that most of Truman's contemporaries thought he did the right thing. Eisenhower urged Henry Stimson, the secretary of state, not to use the bomb on the basis of his belief "that Japan was already defeated and that the dropping of the atomic bomb was completely unnecessary". Other commanders made similar statements. The men in command and on the ground did not share Hastings's argument that the "inexorable logic of war" meant the US had to drop the bomb. What can we learn from this history? It is not one of damning Truman. What this history shows is that George Bush's dream of dominating the world through massive investments in new nuclear weapons repeats a failed project. It is no alternative to the hard work of developing political solutions to problems such as Iran and North Korea, or to building up disarmament treaties. The end of the cold war has given us a second chance. Preparations at Aldermaston to build a nuclear weapon to replace Trident should stop, and the government should support Jack Straw's initiative to save the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and restart nuclear disarmament. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOULAM1 Posted August 7, 2005 Author Share Posted August 7, 2005 http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysi...08-04-voa76.cfmClose to three hundred thousand people died when the bombs were dropped. One million American servicemen were spared death due to the surrender of the Japanese Empire and no invasion. There are scholars that say Japan would have surrendered anyway and it was not necessary to drop even the first of the two bombs. Truman understood American sentiment at the time and saved American lives. You now have people stating that Truman was a criminal and the poor Japanese did not have a chance to die honorably when the bombs were dropped. What of those who died on December 7th, 1941 and is it not amazing how history becomes twisted due to leftist academia. Imagine if the Japanese had the bomb in 1945? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> "It's not just "scholars", it's from Japanese documents from the time. The bombs basically gave Japan a way to surrender without completely losing face. US atomic bombs were Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triumph Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 http://www.voanews.com/english/NewsAnalysi...08-04-voa76.cfmClose to three hundred thousand people died when the bombs were dropped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voros19 Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 (edited) Very interesting points made. There is also a great read in the Post today... Post Opinion "Truman's Dilemma". My point is that you will never hear the mainstream press refer to "the Bombs" dropped as "God's Gifts". You will only see the History Channel showing a poor woman crying about the awful atrocity committed by Truman and the United States. Coincidently, the history channel had a show at 1:00 AM last night on this very issue. EDIT: nevermind, I just realized it was the anniversary... Edited August 7, 2005 by Voros19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Leeds Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 What of those who died on December 7th? There were 2,000 of them that died in several blasts, as opposed to 60,000 who died from one bomb. Why don't we hear more about the firebombing of Dresden?It sounds like you treat your country like it's a sports team you root for. That's very dangerous. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The difference here is that Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack againt a country not yet an enemy.....propelling us into war. The Hiroshamo & Nagasaki's ended the war, saving hundreds of thousands of our soldiers from death. An I DO root for the US like I do my sports teams. Makes sense to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Puddy Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 Very interesting points made. There is also a great read in the Post today... Post Opinion "Truman's Dilemma". My point is that you will never hear the mainstream press refer to "the Bombs" dropped as "God's Gifts". You will only see the History Channel showing a poor woman crying about the awful atrocity committed by Truman and the United States. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Whoa, I don't think you get why he called them "God's Gifts". It was because it gave Japan a way out of the war without revealing the real reason they had to surrender... which was because of the domestic situation, not because of the awesome military might of the USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOULAM1 Posted August 12, 2005 Author Share Posted August 12, 2005 Very interesting points made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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