Hiroshima Didn't Have to Happen »
Posted By dissent 3 months, 2 weeks ago in Political Opinion"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." - Thomas Paine, "Common Sense," 1776
Fifty-six years ago this month, we became the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons in warfare. The world was told that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified in order to bring a swift end to the war without a costly and bloody invasion of Japan's home islands. This, to put it charitably, was a lie. No less an authority than General Dwight Eisenhower has stated unequivocally: "It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
Yet millions of Americans still believe what they were told in August of 1945, well before the experience of being regularly deceived by our government became commonplace. As we saw with the controversies surrounding the 50th anniversary exhibition at the Smithsonian, many are outraged by anyone who agrees with Eisenhower's views. But Eisenhower was hardly alone at the time.
President Truman's top military advisors were virtually unanimous in their belief that the atomic bombs were not needed to end the war without an invasion: Generals MacArthur, Clarke, Bonesteel and Marshall of the Army; Admirals Leahy, Nimitz, Halsey, Wagner and Radford of the Navy; and Generals Arnold, Eaker, LeMay, Spaatz and Chennault of the Air Force. (Comments from each of these men can be found at www.doug-long.com, in an extended discussion of Gar Alperovitz' book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, the most extensive examination of the new evidence in this case.)
The military leaders knew, as most civilians and soldiers did not, that Japan's military situation was completely hopeless. We controlled both her seas and her skies with impunity. The war would be over long before an invasion could be mounted. Eisenhower also knew what some of his fellow generals did not: that for over a year we had been intercepting Japanese diplomatic cables seeking surrender. Dozens of such messages have now been declassified.
Read Full Story at iwhome.com »
250 Views Share Story 28 Comments Report
Submitted By:
dissent
we live in a culture of war.
let's make it a culture of peace.
"my country is the world. and my religion is to ...
Other Related Articles:
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 28 (view all)
-
100%
dissent3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
fta
Reply
This cable traffic became more frequent and more desperate in the final weeks of the war. By then it was clear that the Japanese Emperor and even elements of her military were committed to surrender. And there is now no doubt that President Truman knew this when he made the decision to use nuclear weapons. We have a diary entry in his own handwriting concerning the "cable from Jap Emperor asking for peace."
There was only one condition. Japan was asking for the same terms on which the war was later settled: that she be allowed to retain her Emperor. Truman's political advisors told him that even a hint that we would agree to this, even a private assurance, would be likely to bring the war to an end. But Truman not only refused to offer such assurances, he explicitly removed them from the statement issued at the Potsdam summit in July, knowing full well that this would prolong the war. He waited long months until the atomic bomb was available, without pursuing other avenues to peace. Far from saving lives, the nuclear option caused more soldiers to die in a war that was essentially over.
Why did Harry Truman do this? The available evidence in the historical record indicates that Truman and his closest advisor, Secretary of State James Byrnes, felt that nuclear weapons would give America unchallenged military power. -
-
-
86%
dissent3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
true. but the article points out that japan and its emperor DID surrender. they had been surrendering with increasing frequency and desperation for one whole year before we finally nuked them.
Reply
japan however was nuked -- twice -- not to end the war but to illustrate a point to the rest of the world.
the point was "don't f*ck with us." but it backfired. a few, mainly the soviets, figured they'd better have some of their own. which brings us eventually to where we are now -- a cold war, a soviet implosion and now our own economic demise. but hey, we've got a mind-blowing nuclear arsenal to take out this world and quite a few others as well.
hmmmmm, i wonder what will happen next? strange days indeed -
100%
Natureboy3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
We could have, but we wanted to see what they would do to an inhabited city.
Reply
Just as important, we wanted RUSSIA to see what our bombs would do to an inhabited city.
Couldn't experiment on the Germans. They were nazis, but they were white Europeans. The Japanese could be nuked with far less public outcry.
-
-
100%
reallypsst3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
What is not mentioned here is japans emperor was not in charge of its military,the army hardline generals were in control and dictated orders to not surrender and fight to the last man,also japan had over half a million soldiers left in the fight and controlled many islands,finally the war came to an end from the outcry of japans people !
Reply -
100%
Hobe3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Hiroshima Didn't Have to Happen »
Reply
Is it Fair to Say, the Well Planned, Coward, Dirty, Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor that Murdered Thousands of Innocent American Men, Women and Children should not have happened?
Japan's WAR Ended Immediately, thus, the Senseless Killing of Human Life on all sides also ENDED Immediately...
Now Than, that must be worth Something, Don't You Think....-
100%
kobzikov3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"Is it Fair to Say, the Well Planned, Coward, Dirty, Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor that Murdered Thousands of Innocent American Men, Women and Children should not have happened?"
Reply
Whether the attack on Pearl Harbor should or shouldn't have happened I do not know, but it definitely shouldn't have succeeded since FDR knew about it beforehand.
And not only did hostilities not end immediately after the atomic bombs were dropped, the "senseless killing of human life on all sides" continued past Japanese surrender due to effects of radiation.
-
-
50%
Hobe3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Hiroshima Didn't Have to Happen »
Reply
Is it Fair to Say, the Well Planned, Coward, Dirty, Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor that Murdered Thousands of Innocent American Men, Women and Children should not have happened?
Japan's WAR Ended Immediately, thus, the Senseless Killing of Human Life on all sides also ENDED Immediately...
Now Than, that must be worth Something, Don't You Think.... -
100%
fjgalt3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Up until about 15 years ago, I always thought the truth was that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a million American lives and millions of Japanese lives.
Reply
Since then, I've come to believe that we dropped them as a demonstration to everyone, especially Russia (Truman was strongly anti-communist).
The fire-bombings of Tokyo and Dresden* killed about the same number of people (albeit without the effects of radiation poisoning) so conventinal weapons were just as effective.
However, to use fire-bombings and atomic bombs against mostly civilian targets is cowardly and criminal, especially now that we know Japan was willing to surrender months before.
Such acts in our history tarnishes us.
* Dresden was a cultural city with no military value and many German soldiers sent their wives and children there, thinking it to be a safe haven. But the British wanted revenge for the London bombings. Many of the Americans who participated exhibited remorse afterward, when they learned the nature of their target.-
100%
kobzikov3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
What bothers me more are the continuous attempts to whitewash the wrongdoings of the past.
Reply
The present generations cannot be blamed for the wrongs of their forefathers, but do we not have the responsibility to acknowledge past mistakes? How exactly are we supposed to learn from history if we don't look objectively at the past? -
-
-
Neutral
DarkWizard3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Truthfully, I have mixed feelings about the dropping of the atomic bomb. I am against it in the context of what we now know, but even knowing that many were against it in Truman's military leadership doesn't change the context of the time they made this decision. This is by no means an endorsement of what happened. I know it is easy to judge this in hindsight, but I don't think that we can truly know the logical outcomes of not dropping the atomic bomb. We could have already experienced a third world war or nuclear weapons could have been developed faster by countries we couldn't control. Once again, I do not agree with the dropping of the bomb any more than I agree with torture, but we live in a world that has experienced such horror and to assume things would have been better had it not happened is only conjecture.
Reply -
Neutral
sanyi_oradea3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
It didn't have to happen, but that's what happened to those that double crossed Hitler (he had a tremendous secret support in the USA, by those that really put him in power in Germany). The Emperor opened a second front (with the Pearl Harbor events), by opening the door for the Americans to get involved in the second world war(till then congress refused). This was a treason as far as the Hitlerites were concerned. So after they surrendered, they brought over the 3 nukes they all ready had, and handed them over to the the military who used two of them. They also had advanced missiles, air planes run by rocket engines, and were singing till to the last minutes about the coming of victory with the "Magic weapon". The way I see it, there was no Manhattan project, it was all an invention/propaganda, complete with professors lying that they worked in such. Also it's a lie, that the entire Nazi Germany nuclear project was just a small nuclear reactor under a castle somewhere. They had the three bombs.
Reply -
50%
Georgia503 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Truman may indeed have known--and believed--that Japanese diplomats wanted peace terms.
Reply
That leave the Japanese military. They did not want peace terms. They wanted to wage war in a manner consistent with Japanese feudalism and honor: to the death of the last man standing.
Any discussion of the two A-bombs that leaves out the Japanese military dynamic in general, and the nearly-successful coup against the Emperor that took place on the palace grounds even as the Nagasaki sortie approached specifically, fosters ignorance of the wider issues at best and is intentionally dishonest at worst.
This braying about Japanese diplomatic initiatives at a time when Japanese army officers were willing to depose their Emperor and continue the war is of huge importance in grasping the decision to drop the bombs.-
100%
Ratskii3 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
So why weren't they dropped on military targets? Also why was there an a major coverup and suppression of the films made by both Japan and the U.S. that showed what the bombs did?
Reply
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/08/07/greg-mit...
-
-
HMMaceComment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned
-
0%
lloydm653 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
We need to tear up the history books,you God Da^mn idiot are trying to write new ones.Please for gods sake where did you come from.I can't believe you were born of two loving parents.I think a couple of buzzards bump a$$es,and laid their eggs in the ghetto.
Reply
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.