stu3@mhuxh.UUCP (Mark Modig) (10/12/84)
<...> > => Amir >I said that 450,000 people dying because of one bomb, is not my idea of >saving lives. The point has been brought out that since the Emperor of Japan >said they would never surrender, we had to drop the bomb on them. And not once >but twice. Now think about it. Do you really believe that when the head of a >country says we will never do something, that is the final word or situations >in the world change so much every day that there is no way one can say I never >surrender. > 450,000 from one bomb? Hmmm, that seems a tad high. Anyway, Allied strategists estimated that an invasion of Japan would cost 1 million American lives, 500,000 British lives, plus the lives of at least that many civilians. They also estimated that it would add at least one year to the war. So even if your estimate is correct (I don't think so), I still think that dropping the bomb saved lives. As for saying "we will never surrender", what were we supposed to do, tell them "Ahhh, you can't fool us, you're bluffing" and wait for them to change their minds? There were no moves made towards the British and Americans concerning peace until after the second bomb was dropped. Before that, the Japanese had been talking about negotiating, but they made the mistake of trying to deal with the Russians rather than the Americans and the British. The Russians simply stalled until they got their military units in place and then attacked. With the estimates from above, the Americans and the British certainly were not looking forward to an invasion of the Japanese home islands (even the Russians weren't too interested in that, they were busy trying to grab as much of the Asian mainland that Japan held as they possibly could); a serious move by the Japanese to sue for peace would probably have met with a positive response. The problem was that the Japanese culture did not allow for the possibility of defeat, and defeat was a very difficult thing for the Japanese to deal with. So, yes, when faced with the Japanese conduct of the war to that point (the kamikazes, suicides, and choosing death to capture) I would believe them when they said they would never surrender. Many of the figures in the Japanese government (virtually all of those with real power), which included the military, were prepared to have the nation commit national suicide rather than accept defeat. >Secondly there was already internal resistance to the war by the people, as is >the case of any war that takes too long and costs alot of lives and money. > >There is noway that the Emperor of Japan could have stuck to his promise of never >surrendering, if not pressured from outside sources, he would have been forced >by the internal forces to do so. > >The history is full of people who said 'never' and ended up doing 'it'. > > >To sum it all up, I say that the conventional war which would have ended the >war very soon, would have costed much less lives than mass murder that happened. I just don't think you understand the situation in Japan at that time very well. First of all, I don't think the Emperor EVER said "we will never surrender". The Emperor was not the political ruler of Japan; he actually said very little publicly. He WAS viewed as a god (one of the reasons he did not rule, such things were beneath him), and his prestige was based largely on custom. At the meeting where Hirohito insisted on surrender, it was an almost unthinkable breach of custom to ask the Emperor for advice; he was largely a "rubber-stamp" for the government. Fortunately, he was given a chance to speak through some adroit maneuvering by some of the government moderates,he said "surrender", and the custom of obeying the Emperor's wishes prevailed (barely). Up until that time, surrender was a very dirty word in Japanese political circles. Overall, the fanaticism of the military and thus of the government (since the military basically ran the government) is really hard to comprehend and understand. But the people who were there and had to deal with it believed the Japanese government would never surrender unless forced to by an invasion (with the resulting slaughter) or by the A-bomb;an option that was greeted with considerable relief by the Truman and Churchill when it became available. The slaughter in terms of simple numbers of human lives was less this way. Two last things: there was a lot of discontent among Japanese civilians about the damage, killing, and shortages, but there was no lack of support for the Japanese war effort, and civilians as a whole appeared quite ready to fight with the same fanaticism that had been displayed. Second, war IS murder. It doesn't matter HOW you kill people, it is still murder, whether you A-bomb them, shoot them, bayonet them-- it makes no difference. The fact that war is wholesale slaughter makes it a thing to be avoided. Using the A-bomb helped us avoid a long, protracted invasion of Japan that would have turned the islands into a giant charnel house. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No funny quotes this time, I can't think of anything funny to say right now.... Mark Modig ..ihnp4!btlunix!mom