WillBarrett: “We can keep going in circles if you’d like….I’m not even sure why I’m getting back into this, but as I’ve already explained: Your entire argument rests on the belief that we would HAD to have invaded Japan if we didn’t bomb them.”

That’s right, Will, we would have had to invade Japan without the Bomb. Their military believed that they could bleed us enough in the invasion to surrender on their terms, which included more than the retention of the Emperor but the retention of the existing order in Japan. The atomic bombings did not change the Japanese military’s position. Without occupying Japan, the militaristic tyranny which ran it would have regrouped and forced us to refight the same war a generation later, just like not occupying Germany after WWI allowed Germany a second effort in WWII.

WillBarrett: “But a quick check at a number of websites, such as wikipedia, illustrates that many of the military commanders of the time did not think INVASION was necessary.”

As I’ve pointed out before, these opinions were based on service rivalries. The Navy believed an invasion was unnecessary if they blockaded Japan. The Air Force believed strategic bombing alone could bring Japan to surrender without an invasion.

The services feuded throughout the Pacific War. Nimitz thought he could win the Pacific with just the Navy fighting fleet to fleet. MacArthur thought the Army could win the Pacific by island-hopping in 250 mile steps determined by the limit of air cover. In the end, Roosevelt couldn’t or wouldn’t decide the issue in either service’s favor, but had them proceed on parallel lines of attack. The dispute over the end game in Japan is a continuation of this running rivalry.

WillBarrett: “MacArthur, for example, believed that if we allowed the Emperor to keep his title, he would’ve surrendered.”

MacArthur realized that it wasn’t worth the extra cost in American lives to remove the Japanese god emperor and it would make it more difficult to rule occupied Japan without his symbolic authority. While retaining the Emperor was the core demand of the surrender negotiation, the advisors in Hirohito’s court explicitly state that the atom bombings are what decided the surrender question. Had we killed the Emperor or sent him in hiding, we would have had not only the invasion to fight but years of guerrilla warfare in the cities and mountains. MacArthur realized that to avoid that bloodshed we would have to let the Emperor stay in place as a figurehead.

The atom bombings allowed the Emperor to save face by citing it as a new and horrible weapon that Japan could not resist. Hirohito’s surrender speech: “Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, nor to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.”

Hirohito cites the atom bomb as his primary reason for capitulation. The destruction wrought by the atom bombs was not significantly different from the earlier conventional bombing of Japan. The only significant difference was that one B-29 with an atom bomb could do the damage that 220 B-29s could do, and did, in mass raids with conventional bombs. We could have bombed them either way. However, the shock of the new weapon gave Hirohito a face-saving pretext to end the war. Like he said, he wasn’t just saving Japan, he was saving human civilization. That was nice of him.

The public reason Hirohito gave for surrendering trumps the private speculation of the Allied commanders as to what was necessary for the Japanese to surrender. Hirohito was the central figure whose will to fight we had to break. It took the atom bombs to break his will.

Tantor on August 8, 2007 at 9:01 PM

WillBarrett: “Thus, the high number of civilians in the area was clearly a factor in the military’s decision to use this as a target. But of course, others have attempted to diminish this fact by saying “well, they would’ve fought to the last” or “the Japanese were brutal,” so they deserved it. So now we get to the heart of it: You are OK with killing civilians, women and children.”

I don’t see where civilians were the target in your example nor in anything I’ve read. It’s been pointed out several times that Hiroshima was a military town full of soldiers. There were also considerable military stores on the bases and military production spread out through the civilian areas. If your neighborhood is full of homes where people are assembling ammunition and other military gear, you become a legitimate target for bombing.

Also, it’s been mentioned before that the entire civilian population of Japan had been militarized. Everyone was expected to resist the Allied invasion and to die as a result. What weapons were available had been distributed to the civilian population with instructions to use them, just as had been done in Okinawa. You can not make every man, woman, and child a combatant and at the same time demand they be protected from attack as civilians.

If you wanted to stop the killing of civilians, your area of concern would lie outside Japan in places like China where the Japanese had a policy of casually killing civilians, whom they considered “logs,” hardly human. The Chinese claim the Japanese killed 30 million Chinese during the war. However, if you accept the lowest figure of ten million Chinese killed given by some sources that means the Japanese were killing Chinese civilians at the rate of the population of Hiroshima every two weeks. When you argue for sparing a city of the Japanese aggressor, you are sacrificing many cities of their innocent Chinese victims. That is an inferior moral outcome which reasonable people should reject.

Tantor on August 9, 2007 at 6:25 AM

WillBarrett,

You’re quibbling. What I have said in a previous post is that the population of Hiroshima was one eighth military. So, yes, Hiroshima was full of soldiers. If you go to Fayeteville, NC you will find it full of soldiers from Ft. Bragg. You’re trying to create a contradiction where none exists.

WillBarrett: “Here you seem to be implying that yes, we did intentionally kill civilians, but that they had been “militarized,” so that’s OK, they’re not really civllians. Do you actually believe that it’s OK to kill someone for what they might do? Would every woman and child have fought to the last? What about a small child? Would a five year old with a bamboo stick really be that much of a threat?”

Yes, that’s right. The entire civilian population had been militarized, was told to resist, and was expected to die for the Emperor: One Hundred Million Lives For The Emperor!

Yes, when Japan drafted the entire civilian population to fight the invasion, it seems reasonable to take them at their word. Nor did we need to speculate as to whether this policy would be supported by the non-military population. We’d already seen it fulfilled on Okinawa, and they weren’t even considered fully Japanese.

Yes, when attacking Japan we quite properly should kill combatants for what they might do. For example, the tens of thousands of Japanese troops in Hiroshima were quite correctly killed for what they might do to resist the invasion and kill Americans. Thousands of our troops would have been killed and wounded had we attempted to subdue them in conventional combat. Likewise, a civilian population that has been conscripted to be combatants make themselves legitimate targets. We shouldn’t wait on our attack in the hopes that they’ll just give up.

The Japanese were the aggressors in this war and should bear the risk of the war. It’s puzzling why you wish to place the risk of this war on everyone but the aggressors. The most moral outcome of a savage war of conquest which the Japanese waged is for its violence to be repaid tenfold upon Japan the aggressor. It’s immoral to argue that Japan’s victims should bleed to spare Japan.

The fact that Japan gave kindergarteners bayonet drill, gave them bamboo spears, and told them to fight the Allied invaders demonstrates rather vividly the depth of determination of the Japanese to fight on to the death. Such commitment argues against your assertion that the Japanese would have probably just given up without being forced by invasion.

WillBarrett: “Again, you and others on this thread keep attempting to diminish the simple fact that Hiroshima was a city. It was not solely a military base, and was chosen because it was an URBAN center that would cause PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS….as the quote above states.”

All combat is intended to have psychological effect: breaking the enemy’s will to fight. Hiroshima was no different from any other target in that regard. You can not expect to remain immune from the ill effects of a war you launched if you live next to a military installation, contribute to its support, and prepare to engage your enemy in combat. The Germans and Italian citizens did not take up arms against the Allies when we invaded and were spared accordingly. The Japanese took up arms and were not spared.

WillBarrett: “Even historians and scholars who think the bombs WERE justified acknowledge that we intentionally killed civilians. What more proof do you need? Is it because you are uncomfortable with the killing of civilians, and worry about the consequences of this logic (as I pointed out in my previous post): that we may always kill civilians in order to keep our casualties down?”

You’re using the term “civilians” in an ambiguous manner. Certainly, you can call the citizens of Hiroshima civilians because they were not in the military. On the other hand, if they are charged with resisting the Allied invaders, they’re really guerrillas, aren’t they?

Also, as I have pointed out before and you don’t address, dropping the atom bombs on Japan stopped the greater slaughter of civilians in Asia and Oceania. According to Wikipedia, the Japanese were killing 200,000 civilians per month in Asia. It’s curious that your concern for the killing of civilians is exclusive to Japan and does not extend beyond its coast.

WillBarrett: “Of course, the last part of your argument I alread addressed as well: How does a Japanese child in Nagasaki deserve to die because of the (horrendous) actions of a Japanese soldier in China?”

Japanese children were not the target of the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki, as you imply, but rather its large munitions manufacturing complex. The Japanese can best protect their civilian population by not attacking other nations and slaughtering their civilians. Your argument leads to the impractical conclusion that no military assets may be targeted if Japanese civilians may be harmed. It’s immoral to shift the burden of risk of a war from the aggressors to their victims. The risk of war rightfully rests on the aggressors.

WillBarrett: “Furthermore, I am willing to bet that the “rate” you are talking about referred to an early time in the war (of course, you gave no source, so I’m not sure), and did not apply to the time period when the bombs were dropped. Thus, you would be dropping the bomb on people who hadn’t necessarily committed those horrible actions. Seems kind of unfair to me, how about you?”

The ten million figure I give is the lowest of all the death figures given for China. If you can find a lower one from a credible source, I’ll use that one. Once you get into millions of deaths, it’s hard to increase the immorality of such aggression. The immorality is pegged to the max.

It’s impossible to kill ten million people in combat. You can only kill defenseless civilians in such great numbers. The battles at the beginning of the war in China were only the introduction to the slaughter. It was the occupation which bled China.

The Japanese Kwantung Army occupied China for ten years with as many as 700,000 soldiers before the US entered the war. There were many Japanese who had served a two year tour in China and returned and got out of the army. As part of the in-country orientation, a new soldier was expected to kill a Chinese prisoner. There were plenty of them to go around. Each group of enlisted men bayonetted a single Chinese prisoner. Each officer blooded his samurai sword by beheading a Chinese. This went on for years, as soldiers came and went, cycling through, hundreds of thousands of them.

That was just one mechanism by which Chinese were killed. Of course, many of them were killed casually by Japanese troops, by their intelligence services, or by other Japanese.

And the Japanese were not going to go out quietly. When Japan was invaded, they had orders to execute all their prisoners. If not for the shock of the Bombs and a speedy surrender, the Japanese would have ended the war in China with a frenzy of slaughter, much like they did when chased out of Manila, leaving dead civilians all over the streets.

WillBarrett: “Here is a little statement by Dinesh D’souza … A quote from it: ‘The deeper question remains: is the targeting of civilians justified? Before we say yes, let’s remember what happened at 9/11. When civilians are killed with a view to terrorizing a population into capitulating to the killer’s demands, we call this terrorism. Isn’t this precisely what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?’”

No, Hiroshima/Nagasaki were not morally equivalent to Sep 11. If you recall, the Japanese launched a sneak attack on us at Pearl Harbor which started the war. They also attacked many other American territories like the Philippines, Guam, Alaska, Wake, Midway, etc. Those Americans they captured were treated brutally, tortured, executed, cannibalized, vivisected for medical practice, used as test subjects for weapons, and so on. That makes Japan the aggressor. Defeating the Japanese racist tyranny which had enslaved hundreds of millions was a noble and moral act. Dropping the atom bombs the most direct path to that victory over evil.

By contrast, the attack on Sep 11 was done for the most evil of causes, to propagate a religion, Islam. The innocent people aboard those airliners, in the World Trade Center, and in the Pentagon had done nothing to their Islamist aggressors but subscribe to a religion other than Islam.

The idea that both the US and Al Qaeda are morally equivalent “killers” is absurd on its face. The object of the US with respect to Hiroshima/Nagasaki was to end the killing. The object of Al Qaeda is to kill endlessly until all the world submits to Islam. The US immediately ceased the violence after the surrender and built Japan up into an economic superpower. Al Qaeda wants the non-Muslim world to be slaves to Muslims with no rights they are bound to respect, to steal their property, to make the infidel women their concubines, and to reduce all non-Muslims to dhimmis.

The Japanese and Al Qaeda are remarkably similar in their pathologies. Both extoll suicide missions and death. Both are fond of beheading their enemies and anyone who isn’t like them. Both envision a future where everyone else is their slaves. Both hate democracy. Both made the mistake of thinking America was weak.

WillBarrett: “Finally, as I have repeated earlier, I reject your contention that it was an “either/ or” scenario: invade or bomb. See the link in my previous post for more on that (read both parts, Tantor, if you are really interested in hearing all sides)….But even if I granted that it was, I still would have deep moral problems with bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I think all good men of conscience should as well.”

General Marshall, the commanding general of the US military was convinced by the battle of Okinawa that an invasion was necessary:
“On July 14, 1945, General Marshall sadly informed the Combined Chiefs of Staff – he was not trying to scare the Japanese – that it’s “now clear. . . that in order to finish with the Japanese quickly, it will be necessary to invade the industrial heart of Japan.”"

WillBarrett, you are wedded to this speculation that the Japanese would have spontaneously surrendered. Could you show us anything the Japanese did that would lead you to believe that? A Japanese holdout fought on for nine months after the recapture of Corregidor. Another company-sized unit fought on for five months south of Manila. Another group of Japanese military stranded on an island refused to surrender for six years. The Japanese were still fighting on Iwo Jima four years after they surrendered, Indonesia 20 years later, 28 years later on Guam,
Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda fought on for 29 years in the Philippines. Captain Fumio Nakahira, held out for 35 years on Mindoro in the Philippines until finally surrendering in 1980. Ten thousand Japanese soldiers in Manchuria fought on after the surrender until 1948. Some Japanese in China never surrendered.

Now, I know of no other war where the defeated soldiers fought on after the surrender, certainly not for decades. Call me crazy, but that leads me to believe that these were not a people who easily surrendered. So it puzzles me how you came to the completely opposite conclusion, as if the Japanese were French or Italian who surrender at the drop of a hat.

There were many good men of conscience prepared to invade Japan to end its wicked reign of racist tyranny, guys like Paul Fussell, who thanked God for the atom bomb:

“The invasion was definitely on, as I know because I was to be in it.

“When the atom bomb ended the war, I was in the Forty-fifth Infantry Division, which had been through the European war so thoroughly that it had needed to be reconstituted two or three times. We were in a staging area near Rheims, ready to be shipped back across the United States for refresher training at Fort Lewis, Washington, and then sent on for final preparation in the Philippines.

“My division, like most of the ones transferred from Europe, was to take part in the invasion of Honshu. (The earlier landing on Kyushu was to be carried out by the 700,000 infantry already in the Pacific, those with whom James Jones has sympathized.)

“I was a twenty-one-year-old second lieutenant of infantry leading a rifle platoon. Although still officially fit for combat, in the German war I had already been wounded in the back and the leg badly enough to be adjudged, after the war, 40 percent disabled. But even if my leg buckled and I fell to the ground whenever I jumped out of the back of a truck, and even if the very idea of more combat made me breathe in gasps and shake all over, my condition was held to be adequate for the next act.

“When the atom bombs were dropped and news began to circulate that “Operation Olympic” would not, after all, be necessary, when we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault – firing while being machine–gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live. We were going to grow to adulthood after all. The killing was all going to be over, and peace was actually going to be the state of things.”

Tantor on August 9, 2007 at 6:30 PM