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blowfish posted:It's silly that destruction wrought by A-bombs is seen as some special kind of evil compared to the same amount of destruction wrought by a fuckton of conventional bombs. yeah, how silly
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Oct 24, 2016 23:58
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What conditions would have been acceptable for US to allow Imperial Japan? Land concessions in Korea or Manchuria? Allowing continuity of government? I can't think of any conditions that Imperial Japan could offer that would be either morally or practically feasible for the US to accept.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:58
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Fojar38 posted:What conditions would have been acceptable for US to allow Imperial Japan? Land concessions in Korea or Manchuria? Allowing continuity of government? considering they went ahead and allowed emperor to remain, that sounds good to me.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:02
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The effects of prolonged exposure to radiation from the detonation of a nuclear weapon still wasn't well understood at the time (although it was understood that radiation was a bad thing about them.) Operation Downfall envisioned sending unprotected US Troops into a blast zone something like 20 minutes after detonation and even after the war you had poo poo like this.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:03
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i remember reading about a german city which was firebombed where rescuers clearing rubble from an air-raid shelter's entrance opened the door to discover a weird paste covering the floor. turns out it got so hot inside that everyone in the shelter was cooked and melted together into human goop. people would die from suffocation as the fire consumed all the oxygen in the air gonna have to say that the very early atomic bombs dropped on japan were arguably not as bad as mass firebombing
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Oct 25, 2016 00:04
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Condiv posted:considering they went ahead and allowed continuity of government, that sounds good to me. After the Japanese unconditionally surrendered and they got a look at what was going on. A condition of continuation of government was unacceptable until after the war had already ended because the US had no idea who was responsible for what in the Japanese government. And you also seem to believe that the US had said that they were going to depose the Emperor and then backed off on it, when actually they said that they had no particular opinion on the Emperor specifically and would decide what to do with him after unconditional surrender.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:05
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The firebombing of Tokyo killed a minimum estimated 100k people and the fires destroyed an area where 1.5M people lived We also bombed probably 40 other Japanese cities in the same fashion. WW2 was a bad war and hopefully the last of its kind and saying that "The Nuclear Bombs are the bad part" is pretty myopic.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:05
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Fojar38 posted:What conditions would have been acceptable for US to allow Imperial Japan? Land concessions in Korea or Manchuria? Allowing continuity of government? There really isn't, but unconditional surrender is the underlying cause to Operation Starvation, Operation Downfall, Operation Meetinghouse and Operation Centerboard. So if you have to pick something, the root cause would be where to start.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:06
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Stereotype posted:The firebombing of Tokyo killed a minimum estimated 100k people and the fires destroyed an area where 1.5M people lived no one's saying that the nukes were the bad part. there was poo poo tons of bad parts done by all sides. this thread is dedicated to the a-bomb tho
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Oct 25, 2016 00:11
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Condiv posted:no one's saying that the nukes were the bad part. there was poo poo tons of bad parts done by all sides. this thread is dedicated to the a-bomb tho What was the bad part then?
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Oct 25, 2016 00:14
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The nukes were intimately tied into the strategic bombing campaign, so if they were good, so was roasting a hundred thousand people alive in Tokyo. I love the smell of burnt flesh in the morning... it tastes like victory.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:15
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Brainiac Five posted:The nukes were intimately tied into the strategic bombing campaign, so if they were good, so was roasting a hundred thousand people alive in Tokyo. I love the smell of burnt flesh in the morning... it tastes like victory. LeMay was a..... special kinda guy. 3 of the 4 choices available to end the war were carried out by his command.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:17
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38q5mzfdIA8
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Oct 25, 2016 00:17
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Fojar38 posted:What was the bad part then? try reading the post you quoted. there was no singular bad part
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Oct 25, 2016 00:20
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Condiv posted:try reading the post you quoted. there was no singular bad part So the war in general was bad, which I don't think is all that controversial. Blame for the occurrence of the war though falls on Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy though.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:22
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In general the Allied bombing campaigns against German and Japanese civilian populations was pretty horrific. It was not right or necessary at all. Of course the Germans and Japanese were far more evil in their barbarism and cruelty and had to be stopped but never the less the war crimes committed against their civilian populations were still war crimes of an almost inconceivable scale.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:23
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Condiv posted:try reading the post you quoted. there was no singular bad part You literally just implied that the bombs were a singular evil like two posts ago and saying "this thread is about discussing the atomic bomb, not anything else!" is not actually a compelling answer to the suggestion that you're ignoring/downplaying the consequences of the alternatives so you can moralize. LGD fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 00:24
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Condiv posted:no one's saying that the nukes were the bad part. there was poo poo tons of bad parts done by all sides. this thread is dedicated to the a-bomb tho You just seemed to disagree with this post: blowfish posted:It's silly that destruction wrought by A-bombs is seen as some special kind of evil compared to the same amount of destruction wrought by a fuckton of conventional bombs. Which seems like a pretty correct assertion? The A-bomb is bad, but as far as death and misery goes, isn't really any worse than other aerial bombardment strategies used in Japan in 1945. Maybe it is worse because it is "easier" (a single bomb and a single bomber). If anything it is better though, since conventional bombings didn't seem to be bringing an end to the war in the minds of the Japanese.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:28
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the a-bomb is worse than a conventional bombing because the chances of survival are less stochastic. any individual bomb dropped had a percentile chance of slaughtering small children and other non-combatants, but nuclear weapons burned everyone in the fireball to a crisp and crushed everyone in the lethal range of the thunderball, with the stochastic effects coming with the flash and the radiation/fallout and buildings collapsing.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:30
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Yeah, 67 cities were razed to the ground before the bombs were dropped.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:31
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America could have done with having a few cities bombed IMHO
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Oct 25, 2016 00:40
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LGD posted:You literally just implied that the bombs were a singular evil like two posts ago and saying "this thread is about discussing the atomic bomb, not anything else!" is not actually a compelling answer to the suggestion that you're ignoring/downplaying the consequences of the alternatives so you can moralize. i'm ignoring the alternatives you guys have suggested because i do not think they would be necessary (nor would dropping the atomic bomb).i'm not alone in this belief: quote:Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet - “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. ... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.”
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Oct 25, 2016 00:52
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The Japanese sued for conditional surrender which was unacceptable. And he's correct that from a purely military standpoint that the bombs didn't matter because the US was going to win (from a purely military standpoint) with or without them. The question was how the US won and under what terms.
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Oct 25, 2016 00:54
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it apparently was acceptable because the us eventually accepted the terms of their surrender. just after an unnecessary show of force
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Oct 25, 2016 00:58
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Fojar38 posted:The Japanese sued for conditional surrender which was unacceptable. And he's correct that from a purely military standpoint that the bombs didn't matter because the US was going to win (from a purely military standpoint) with or without them. The question was how the US won and under what terms. Why don't you use your necromancy for better ends than winning arguments about your lust for Japanese blood on the internet. Especially since you can't even do that.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:01
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Condiv posted:it apparently was acceptable because the us eventually accepted the terms of their surrender. just after an unnecessary show of force No, they did not accept the terms of Japanese surrender and I don't see how you keep making this mistake. Basically, what happened was the Potsdam declaration demanded Japan's unconditional surrender. Japan wanted to keep the emperor and asked the allies about it, to which the reply was "Dunno, we'll decide what we do with him after your unconditional surrender." Then the bombs and the Soviet declaration of war happened, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, the US occupied Japan, and THEN they made their decision about what to do with the emperor. Not before they knew what the emperors role in the entire war was, but after. And by the way, the Emperor explicitly referenced the bombs in his decision to surrender, so yeah, they actually did play a part in getting Japan to surrender.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:10
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Fojar38 posted:No, they did not accept the terms of Japanese surrender and I don't see how you keep making this mistake. Meanwhile, over here in reality and not in legalistic wretchland, the surrender was accepted on the implicit condition that the Emperor would remain on the throne, and indeed the first prime minister of Japan during the occupation, Konoe Fumimaro, killed himself over realizing the Emperor would never face an investigation into his role in the war. Anyways, it's disgusting and morally unacceptable for you to whitewash Hirohito's involvement in the war.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:14
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Yeah the war was already won militarily, the question was how to force a surrender/effect a political transition and do it as humanely as possible. Compared to invasion or starvation, forcing surrender via a display or overwhelming force looks enormously appealing from both a US and Japanese perspective. The argument that the bombs had no impact and should not have been dropped relies on discounting all statements from the involved Japanese parties as pure after-the-fact propaganda, assuming that we can intuit the thinking of people in a handful of meetings based on sketchy documentary evidence, and judging that the decision was based entirely on them suddenly believing Stalin when he said he wouldn't serve as a negotiator while ignoring that this exactly coincided with the news of the second atomic bombing serving as evidence that the Japanese high command's assumptions re: US's production capacity for atomic weapons were off-base. And then arguing US policy makers should have been able to intuit or deduce all this about an insanel opaque decision-making process.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:18
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So Hirohito was partly responsible for one of the worst wars in history, but the Allies should have accepted the Japanese request for his staying around because....?
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Oct 25, 2016 01:18
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LGD posted:Yeah the war was already won militarily, the question was how to force a surrender/effect a political transition and do it as humanely as possible. Compared to invasion or starvation, forcing surrender via a display or overwhelming force looks enormously appealing from both a US and Japanese perspective. The argument that the bombs had no impact and should not have been dropped relies on discounting all statements from the involved Japanese parties as pure after-the-fact propaganda, assuming that we can intuit the thinking of people in a handful of meetings based on sketchy documentary evidence, and judging that the decision was based entirely on them suddenly believing Stalin when he said he wouldn't serve as a negotiator while ignoring that this exactly coincided with the news of the second atomic bombing serving as evidence that the Japanese high command's assumptions re: US's production capacity for atomic weapons were off-base. And then arguing US policy makers should have been able to intuit or deduce all this about an insanel opaque decision-making process. Nobody cared about doing it as humanely as possible you dipshit. VikingSkull posted:So Hirohito was partly responsible for one of the worst wars in history, but the Allies should have accepted the Japanese request for his staying around because....? The Allies should have strung him up for his orders to the garrisons on Saipan and Okinawa, and worked with the JCP and JSP to establish a Japanese republic, as has been consistently demanded by left-wing Japanese people since the end of the occupation and US censorship. Political realities meant that this was not achieved.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:23
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Also, part of the issue was that the military was hoping to stay in control in some capacity. That was unacceptable in the eyes of the Allies. It wasn't so much they would be allowed to "keep the emperor" but that the Emperor would still be at head of the state rather than an entirely ceremonial figure.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:30
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Ardennes posted:Also, part of the issue was that the military was hoping to stay in control in some capacity. That was unacceptable in the eyes of the Allies. The Emperor was, at least, made an entirely ceremonial constitutional monarch. The senior military staff (as distinct from the moron colonels and lt. commanders) understood well that if they lost the war that was it for them.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:32
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LGD posted:Yeah the war was already won militarily, the question was how to force a surrender/effect a political transition and do it as humanely as possible. Compared to invasion or starvation, forcing surrender via a display or overwhelming force looks enormously appealing from both a US and Japanese perspective. The argument that the bombs had no impact and should not have been dropped relies on discounting all statements from the involved Japanese parties as pure after-the-fact propaganda, assuming that we can intuit the thinking of people in a handful of meetings based on sketchy documentary evidence, and judging that the decision was based entirely on them suddenly believing Stalin when he said he wouldn't serve as a negotiator while ignoring that this exactly coincided with the news of the second atomic bombing serving as evidence that the Japanese high command's assumptions re: US's production capacity for atomic weapons were off-base. And then arguing US policy makers should have been able to intuit or deduce all this about an insanel opaque decision-making process. good thing the japanese had sued for peace already? so none of those things would be necessary
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Oct 25, 2016 01:38
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oh, and here's a nice little article on this: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf
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Oct 25, 2016 01:39
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Brainiac Five posted:The Emperor was, at least, made an entirely ceremonial constitutional monarch. The senior military staff (as distinct from the moron colonels and lt. commanders) understood well that if they lost the war that was it for them. This is kinda why the unconditional surrender was not dropped, but the Emperor was later allowed to stay as a figurehead. The Allies did not know who was responsible until after they took control. Hirohito even offered himself up for trial, but the Allies said no. Maybe they should have, but he had value to the Japanese populace and it was good propaganda for the Allied Occupation. Condiv posted:oh, and here's a nice little article on this: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/is3104_pp162-179_wilson.pdf Ya know, shame on the Allies for not perusing the Japanese records they had at the time.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:39
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Brainiac Five posted:Nobody cared about doing it as humanely as possible you dipshit. Revisionists seem pretty intensely interested in the humaneness of solution used to force a surrender (even if selectively), and even at the time I don't think people were disinterested in minimizing casualties, just obviously with an incredibly strong bias towards preserving allied forces. I was phone posting so you'll forgive me for splitting the difference- I'm not really sure how it changes the point from either a contemporary or backward looking perspective. Condiv posted:good thing the japanese had sued for peace already? so none of those things would be necessary Whoa way to ignore the other posts regarding your misapprehensions on this topic, and then making GBS threads out a contextless link that explores the way revisionist scholarship based on archival material provides a new counter-narrative that I explicitly addressed in the very post you quoted. LGD fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 01:42
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LGD posted:Revisionists seem pretty intensely interested in the humaneness of solution used to force a surrender (even if selectively), and even at the time I don't think people were disinterested in minimizing casualties, just obviously with an incredibly strong bias towards preserving allied forces. I was phone posting so you'll forgive me for splitting the difference- I'm not really sure how it changes the point from either a contemporary or backward looking perspective. People weren't interested in "minimizing casualties" or they'd have halted the use of strategic bombing after the first surveys that found it was of marginal use in disrupting manufacturing and mostly useful for slaughtering civilians. They were somewhat interested in minimizing attrition of personnel, but this also necessarily often took a backseat to boldness under good commanders.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:48
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Brainiac Five posted:People weren't interested in "minimizing casualties" or they'd have halted the use of strategic bombing after the first surveys that found it was of marginal use in disrupting manufacturing and mostly useful for slaughtering civilians. They were somewhat interested in minimizing attrition of personnel, but this also necessarily often took a backseat to boldness under good commanders. Both were very obviously secondary objectives to actually winning the war.
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Oct 25, 2016 01:53
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LGD posted:Both were very obviously secondary objectives to actually winning the war. What is this inane nonsense?
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Oct 25, 2016 01:55
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Brainiac Five posted:What is this inane nonsense? I'm not really sure? I mean all I'm saying is that once the war was won in a strategic sense, the question was very much "how do we bring this to a decisive close with as little loss to our side as possible." It's not a terribly profound point, but you seem to think I'm suggesting that I'm implying the allied forces were using 90's US style thinking about this, which I'm not at all.
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Oct 25, 2016 02:05
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