stu3@mhuxh.UUCP (Mark Modig) (10/12/84)
<...> > = From Jeff Myers >However, many postings used the advantage of hindsight to support the bombing >of Hiroshima. "Well, look how long it took...how irrational the Japanese >military was..." We had no way of being certain at the time how Japan would >react. Given time, Hirohito may have reacted in just the same way as occurred >historically. Even the evidence at the time, gained from 3 1/2 years of long, hard, bloody fighting, suggested that the Japanese would never surrender. I don't think that we have that much better perspective of what was going on at the time than did those who were actually there. All of the broadcasts of Japanese radio, interrogation of the few prisoners that were taken, and the ferocity of the Kamikazaes, and even input from experts on Japan combined to give a fairly accurate picture of what was going on and what sort of reception the Allies could expect if they inveded the Japanese home islands. The Americans beat the Japanese because, among other things, they won the intelligence war. To say that the Allies had "no way of knowing what was going on in Japan" is simply untrue. Hirohito was only given a chance to speak after a lot of political maneuvering and in-fighting. Only the impetus provided by the A-bombings gave him that chance. Remember, he was mostly a figurehead who did not rule nor even advise. Only the unprecedented destruction caused by the A-bomb gave Hirohito the chance to make his equally unprecedented break with custom and dictate his desires directly to the government ministers. There is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that Hirohito would liked to have called an end to the war long before the A-bomb was dropped, but he was either unwilling or unable (by custom) to make his wishes known directly and have them carried out before this. > Perhaps we could have tried empty island first, Mt. Fujiyama >second? Funny, Bombing that perfectly conical mountain seems almost worse >than bombing Milwaukee. > I think bombing Mt. Fuji would have been an even worse idea than wasting a bomb as a "demonstration" on a small island. Many Japanese consider Mt. Fuji sacred; it is an object of national reverence and pride even for those who don't believe it sacred. Bombing it probably would not have been a very good idea; unless you WANTED to get the Japanese fightin' mad. (In fact, there was an article in the New York Times about a month or so back; Mt. Fuji is losing its famous conical shpae. The mountain is eroding away; the government has been pouring great amounts of money into attempts to stop the erosion. Currently, I believe they are trying to build a wall partway down the side to stop the mountaintop from washing away.) [If this bombing suggestion was a joke, accept my apologies] >Others bring up our shortage of Bombs at the time. Well, Japan was for all >practical purposes militarily defeated already [BUT MANY PEOPLE IN THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT REFUSED TO REALIZE/ACCEPT THIS -mom]...the only real force left to >contend with were Kamikazis (and were they dwindling as well?). What was >our hurry? > > (1) Conserving US personel and equipment. > (2) Liberating Japanese occupied territories from a bad situation. > (3) Reducing the amount of territory the USSR might grab. > (4) Testing the Bomb on REAL targets (it had to be a consideration). > Maybe (4) was a consideration to some of the scientists, but not to the military, and ceratinly not to Truman. Several sources speak of the relief that Truman and Churchill felt when they were informed that the A-bomb tests were successful and the A-bomb could be used on the Japanese. Now don't start in about relief--remember the alternative. Would you have liked to tell the American people: "America, we need 1 million of your sons. We want them young, with the best part of their lives still ahead of them. Kiss them goodbye; you will never see them again. We are sending them off to a foreign land to die." That's what an invasion of Japan would have meant, in 10 words or less. From the Allied point of view, it was "better them than us", and so the bomb was used. The politicians really had no alternative. (Congressman, at President Truman's impeachment trial: "You mean to tell us, sir, that we sent over a million of our boys to fight and die in a foreign land, and that the American people endured the greatest losses in war to date, over a year of agony fighting in Japan, when you had a weapon that you knew would probably end the war in two weeks, and save the lives of all our boys?") >How does one weigh the pros and cons of using a weapon which is orders of >magnitude more powerful than any seen before (on Earth, anyway)? I believe >that the problem was considered as a MILITARY problem rather than as a >HUMAN problem, which is our problem today with Arms Control Talks. Much of >the discussion takes on a language, "experts", and then a reality of its >own; warheads are counted as in children's games at marbles in order to figure >out who is winning and losing. The problem NOW is not a human problem. At that time, it was handled as a human problem at least as much as it was a military problem; the biggest single consideration, I think, was how many Allied lives would be saved. This is not to say that the lives of the Japanese were worthless, but again, it was thought "better them than us". > >Does using the Itty-Bitty-Bomb on Hiroshima differ from the incendiary bombing >of Dresden, or from the German bombing of Guernica (a Basque village) during >the Spanish Civil War? Only in that it has demonstrated to us that one of two >things had best happen quickly: either war as presently practiced must be made >obsolete via negotiations or we must develop the Hyperdrive and spread our >butts out. > >Which is more realistic? Will Peace Thru Strength work FOREVER? >Please think about it. > >Jeff Myers @ La casa de los locos, Los Estados Unidos > > This last piece really deserves an article by itself since it is such a big issue, but I will make two brief points: NOTHING, not "Peace through Strength", Disarmament, or even just Peace, is forever. War isn't either, if that's any comfort. Second, OK, there are arms-control articles and discussions going around. It might be a good idea to pull out the last part of your article here and restate it. For my part, I will say I don't see how war can be made obsolete through negotiation. The mind recalls the 1930's and the Kellogg Treaty and the Washington Naval Treaty... I just have a basic distrust of government. The bigger the area of responsiblity, the more distrust. By the time we get to the national level.... (and that doesn't even count foreign governments, which I distrust even more than our own.) Mark Modig ..ihnp4!btlunix!mom