âSo when I hear somebody saying we should carpet bomb Iraq or Syria, not only is that inhumane, not only is that contrary to our values,âŠâ
Likely more than a few Japanese women and children wish this had been the thinking with Truman.Whether we should have bombed Japan will be debated until the end of time, but the thinking at the time was it was going to save American lives, those servicemen who might have been part of an invasion force to Japan. War is hell, war kills children and other living things, but this country had to end the war decisively, the war that began with Japan bombing this country causing a huge loss of lives.
So, the ends justify the means. Hmmmm, I think Donald Trump says torture is needed in order to save American lives.
Republican candidates for the presidency (and others) need to realize that there is no military solution for ISIS. We are engaged in a battle of ideas and ideals. Every time we stoop to their level - violence, the taking of innocent lives - we play into their hands and create even more converts to their cause. This âwarâ can only be fought and won by showing the world that we follow a higher path and by proving to the world that our way is better.
I wonder how much clenching was done by Senator Cruz after President Obama shoved that verbal fist up Teddyâs bigoted and ignorant ass.
That had to hurt, and I mean a LOT.
Donât you dare you use donald trump and me in the same sentence and subtly compare what I say to the hate he spews. What he says is irrelevant in any sane conversation about anything⊠Weâre talking war that had gone on for years and had to be ended. Thatâs my position as well as the position of those trying to end the war this country hadnât started.
The atomic bomb ended the war. Thereâs really no debate about that. Bombing Syria and Iraq would strengthen rather than diminish ISIS.
Itâs not an apt comparison.
So, the ends do justify the means? Whatever action an aggressor chooses to commit in the service of ending armed hostilities is proper and acceptable if in fact the commission of that act achieves that goal?
In Cruzâs defense, he doesnât really want to carpet bomb ISIS. He just likes the sound of the word because it gets him attention, like a small child that keeps repeating the F-word because it got a laugh from his stoner brother. People have tried to explain to him that carpet bombing doesnât mean what he thinks it means, but he just wonât listen because heâs sure that heâs smarter than everyone else.
As I remember, we carpet-bombed North Vietnam for years. Really brought them to their knees.
FYI, there are dozens of scholarly researchers that have published voluminous studies of the weeks leading up to the use of atomic weaponry by the U.S. in WWII. These are not political hacks with an ax to grind. I could provide links but there isnât the space or time. Suffice it to say there IS debate about the necessity of the U.S. decision. At minimum serious students of the war have little trouble making a very rational case the dropping of the second bomb was entirely unnecessary and uncalled for. To claim there is no debate about our decision is wholly erroneous.
âDuring his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of âfaceâ. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitudeâŠâ
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
In a Newsweek interview, Eisenhower again recalled the meeting with Stimson:
ââŠthe Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasnât necessary to hit them with that awful thing.â
- Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63
ADMIRAL WILLIAM D. LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOHN McCLOY
(Assistant Sec. of War)
"I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."
McCloy quoted in James Reston, Deadline, pg. 500.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LEWIS STRAUSS
(Special Assistant to the Sec. of the Navy)
Strauss recalled a recommendation he gave to Sec. of the Navy James Forrestal before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima:
"I proposed to Secretary Forrestal that the weapon should be demonstrated before it was used. Primarily it was because it was clear to a number of people, myself among them, that the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate...
Strauss added, "It seemed to me that such a weapon was not necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion, that once used it would find its way into the armaments of the world...".
quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 145, 325.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAUL NITZE
(Vice Chairman, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey)
"Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands [scheduled for November 1, 1945] would have been necessary."
Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pg. 44-45.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ELLIS ZACHARIAS
(Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence)
"The Potsdam Declaration, in short, wrecked everything we had been working for to prevent further bloodshed...
"Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia.
"Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb.
"I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds."
Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
(The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors)
"...when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs."
Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.You really think it was that simple a decision?
Well, I think itâs disingenuous to cite a decision made based in 1945 as being relevant to a discussion of comments made by Ted Crud in 2016.
There will always be debate over this decision and yes, the bombing of Nagasaki was likely unnecessary.
And for every Japanese woman and child there were Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Pacific Islander and Filipino women and children. Letâs not cite the suffering of one without the other.
Sadly, yes
They do in this case.
If i chose i could find five citations FOR this action for every one that you post. However I do not have the time nor would it be germane to the topic here.
Weâre venturing far off the topic at hand.
OK Rafael, how do we tell a Muslim neighborhood? Why not white conservative evangelical Christian neighborhoods since these folks seem to do the bulk of the bombing of womenâs clinics?
Itâs amusing to note a great many people that find targeted rough treatment, surveillance, torture and discrimination based on religion to be transgressions bordering on the horrific, yet these very same people rushing to defend at all costs the nuking of two cities full of non-combatant civilians.
And yet here we trade thoughts about the cruelty and insanity of the conservative/GOP mind.
Bombing womenâs reproductive health clinics will be legal in a future Republican administration. Anti-choice zealots should be smart about it and wait for open season to be declared. Just donât bomb more than your limit, and buy your tag first!!
War is immoral and yet sometimes necessary. It was necessary to inflict massive damage on Japan (and Germany) to get them to stop fighting. None of the ways of doing that are morally just fine. we firebombed Dresden. We allowed the bombing of Coventry despite having cracked the German code giving the allies advanced knowledge of the attack. Soldiers on both sides did inhumane things to other soldiers. It was fucking mess all-around, and yet I feel confident in saying that the outcome was a more just and moral world than the alternative.
More important, the means of war were much more crude in WWII. We carpet bombed because we did not have precise munitions. We killed indiscriminately then because we didnât have much choice. Today we have a choice.
Some interesting factoids about Cruzâs father, who had participated in Castroâs revolution, fleeing Cuba in 1957. He went to college in Texas first, got his degree, as far as I can tell, then went to Canada in about 1967 ±. Teddy was born there in 1970. And Iâm thinking that daddyâs stint in Canada may have been at least partly because he was avoiding the draft in America once he was no longer eligible for a student deferment. Immigrants were subject to the draft, the same as citizens. Ironic that John Kerry got Swift-boated. Another interesting factoid is that daddy is Dominionist. Also, Teddyâs mom wasnât daddyâs first wife. He and the first wife had two daughters.