Atomic Japan

Red clay, Are you really a moderator? To be honest the lack of objectivity of some of the moderators in this forum is very disappointing.


First of all what do you mean by this (read the quote below)?

Originally posted by red clay One thing that should not be forgotten is that one out of every five victims of the Japanese were.............Korean.

I wrote 1/5th of the VICTIMS were Korean, I never wrote 1/5th of the Japanese were Korean. It is obvious that you are trying to mock down what I wrote about the Korean victims. Let me explain what I wrote. At the time Japan had brought many Koreans to work in their factories and many Japanese people had already evacuated the big cities, which is the reason for the high rate of Koreans among the victims of the Atomic bombs.

Originally posted by red clay It's very easy to badmouth the US about something that happened 60 some years ago. It's especially easy if your uninformed historically, hate the US to begin with and are willing to ignore the facts as they were in 1945. You use words like, clear and obvious to describe intentions and attitudes that weren't clear or obvious in 1945 and are even less so 60 years later.

My post was a conclusion in the context of the long and tiresome discussion I had in this thread before it was revived this time. I wrote what I wrote based on that long discussion (which nobody seems to have cared to read before reviving it) I had here, It is clear from WHAT WE HAVE DISCUSSED that saving people's lives was not an issue in America's ulterior motives. I only pointed out the fact that I have learned from this long discussion. It is really difficult for me to understand how you take that as ''badmouthing America''.     
By the way you yourself wrote this (read the quote below) in this very thread from which I learned.

Originally posted by red clay The use of the A bomb was very definately done to make the Soviets take notice. However, Fast and cheap it wasn't. To make the bomb in todays dollars, would have cost 100+ billion. The cost at the time was so great it was nearly impossible to not use it.

Note that you yourself uesd the word definitely. so you do accept that things were clear, obvious or definite. So when YOU point out something like this it is ok but when I do the same I am ''badmouthing America'' or I ''essencially hate the US'' ?

Originally posted by red clay It's interesting that you accuse the US of not caring about asians, perhaps you are correct,

I am not accusing anybody, I am only pointing out what I believe to be a fact. That you wrote ''perhaps you are correct'' shows very well that you can not deny it yourself, doesn'tt it? So what is the problem here? Perhaps the problem is that you take too personally every single comment that does not suit your ideal about America.

Originally posted by red clay maybe we should haved behaved more like the Japanese, you seem to think they weren't that bad.

Now I see, you write ''we'' instead of America, no wonder why you take every thing so personally and assume other people to be speaking on behalf of groups and nations as well.

Also you keep using the line of ''1945 was 60 years ago therefore things were different'' as an excuse to deny everything that does not suit your argument, but here you clearly refer to America 60 years ago as ''we'' when you were not even born then. Isn't this a double-standard? To deny every thing that you do not like using the time difference as the excuse , while refering to that exact time (in which you were not even born) as ''we'' ?

I am very much aware of how evil Japan was, but that has nothing to do with pointing out a fact about America, does it? Does how Japan was change a fact about America? obviously not. What you are doing here is playing the childish game of ''they did this'' ''we did that'' to distract and twist the argument.
(although I have to say that twisting/distracting the argument is very common here in AE)



Now, since you happen to be a moderator Let me point out something for you.

Originally posted by red clay You are either deluded, ignorant of history, or both. Or you think that adopting such an absurd stance somehow makes you look "cool".

This post of yours towards Dan Carkner and your last post towards me were violations of the forum rule no,8.       

Negative attitude; tone of confrontation, annoyance, or contempt; disrespectful towards other members.





By the way, since the thread has included other subjects (such as the Japanese occupations and its victims in Asia) without they being treated as off-topic, and since the topic is about the necessity, rightness or justification of the atomic bombs, disscussing the consequences of this mind-set regarding the atomic/nuclear weapons all the way to the present and the future must not be off-topic at all, and it should not be ignored. Also since many members write on behalf of their nations rather than themselves and assume others to be doing the same, here is what I would like to point out.
America is a country which is the only one in the world to have ever used nuclear weapons, and which is justifying their usage in its education-system by teaching ''we dropped the bombs and we won'' (read Pogy66's post in this thread). So how can such a country that has actually used nuclear weapons and that justifies thier usage in it's education, complain about other countries (who are not it's allies) having or developing nuclear energy or weapons? Isn't it a double-standard? Remember, a country (Iraq) has already been completely destroyed under this double-standard/excuse and the complaint against developing nuclear weapons. Now another country (iran) is being sanctioned and is on the verge of being invaded/destroyed. So the point is , either accept that the usage of the atomic bombs were not right, or stop complaining about other countries developing them and stop invading/destroying them because of this reason.

Edited by omshanti - 03-Apr-2007 at 05:25

This has to be the longest thread that I have created that I have not taken much participation in. And I have to say that I got Red Clay's back in saying that you shouldnt bad mouth the United States of America. Whoever said that is a bad man. A very very bad man

It is a difficult question.

 

With the benefit of hindsight, was it necessary? I would say no, Japan was making significant noises towards surrendering. But at the time those noises were not loud enough.

 

An invasion of Japan, or a blockade/bombing campaign possibly going into 1946 may well have cost more Japanese civilian lives than the a-bombs did. Blockades cost lives. And civilian casualties can be horrendous in street to street fighting. I reckon civilian casualties could have been far worse, if (and its a big if) Japan decided to fight on.

 

 

War sucks but you do what has to be done.  Japan would not surrender.  The everyday American soldier in Europe wanted no part of the "other war" and they all were about to be transported over..  They had heard stories of how the japaneese soldier fought till the end.

Hello again SnowyBeagle. We all know what happened in the occupations and nobody is denying any thing. However the topic is about the Atomic bombs dropped in Japan. They were dropped and that is an unchangeable fact, and in my opinion any speculation of ''what if they were not dropped'' is (forgive me to use this word again) irrelevant. The bombs were dropped and that's it. Nobody will ever know what would have happened if they weren't.
Personally I do not care about Japanese people. I am not Japanese. However I do not think that it is right to justify a violent act such as dropping atomic bombs. I am opposing the very act itself and the very deaths caused by it. If the topic was about the occupations I would have opposed justification of the deaths caused by the occupations. If the topic was about the whole war, I would have opposed the whole war. None of the deaths in the war should be justified. It is just that the topic is about the atomic bombs. We can do nothing but accept the deaths as reality, because they happened and that is unchangeable. However we still have the choice of justifying the deaths or opposing the justification.


Edited by omshanti - 01-Feb-2007 at 07:54

Hello again Snowy Beagle. I hope you don't mind me quoting parts of your post in order to express my opinions or point out some things.

Originally posted by snowybeagle ]We probably do not agree on everything, but let's leave it at that.

You are right. let's agree to disagree and leave it at that. The discussion itself is meaningful regardless of us agreeing with each other or not.

Originally posted by snowybeagle I think we have different understanding of the term justified here. I do not see what is the distinction between accepted and justified.

To accept means to acknowledge something regardless of it's justness/rightness. To justify means to prove or show something's justness/rightness.



Those below are three things I would like to point out , just for the record.

Originally posted by snowybeagle The Japanese�forces were more than adequate to carry out operations like Sook Ching in Singapore - a genocide of the ethnic Chinese.

The Sook Ching Massacre was an unforgivable act as are many, many other things that the Japanese forces did, which should never be forgotten. However it happened in Feburuary 1942. In my post I was trying to explain the situation towards the end of the war when the bombs were dropped, to be precise the situation around August 1945.

Originally posted by snowybeagle And recognition that Japan's surrender was not as imminent as some thought. In the end, the final decision that was made had rested on a balance on the choice by the war minister, who was choosing between his own feelings to continue the war,�or obeying the Tenno.

Even if the Japanese war ministry was not going to surrender, it does not mean that the war was going to last. Japan was on the verge of losing the war and being conquered by two super-powers invading from north and south, it hardly had any capable military power left to delay the invasions. It is very much possible that regardless of it's surrender, Japan was going to be conquered very soon. This is a possibility that should be considered too when speculating. Also according to Wikipedia a rescript issued to Japanese forces on August the 17th emphasized the Soviet invasion as the reason for surrender.

Originally posted by snowybeagle ]At this time, I will just have to settle for recognition that not using the A-bomb would have a "hidden" price, a price to be paid by those who had been under years of Japanese occupation and brutality.

I understand what you are trying to say but I do not think that to call it a ''hidden'' price is right because the bombs were dropped and therefore, there was no hidden price to pay. In other words, in reality the real ''price'' was paid by the victims of the atomic bombs and that's that, because that is what actually happened.



Now let's leave speculation.

Originally posted by snowybeagle No one is supposed to feel good about killing, not even killing of enemy soldiers guilty of war crimes, much less innocent civilians. Yet that is what is done in war - regardless of whether you are the aggressor or the defender.

Exactly , It is war .some die and some survive. Some deaths happen to allow other's survival and some survivals other's deaths. It is war and this is natural, which means that even if a death happens to allow another's survival, it has no difference from other deaths in war and it can not be justified. No single death can be justified regardless of it's consequences on other people. What I am trying to say is that even if some people happend to survive because of the atomic bombs, the very act of dropping them and the very deaths caused by them can never be justified.

Originally posted by snowybeagle Can the world ever know if the additional death toll of the victims of Japanese occupation�would have exceeded Hiroshima+Nagasaki if the A-bomb was not used?

No body will ever know because it did not happen, The bombs were dropped and that is an unchangable fact. That is why I think that speculation of ''what if the bombs were not dropped'' is neither here nor there. They were dropped and it is impossible to know what would have happened if they weren't.

The point is that there was violence all around. The Japanese occupation was unimaginably violent, the holocaust was unbelievably violent and the atomic bombs were unquestionably violent. The whole war was violent. Violence all around. Some people survived, some people died.
However not even a single death (including the victims of the atomic bombs) should ever ever be justified.

This is my opinion SnowyBeagle.
I do respect your different opinions too SnowyBeagle. I would happily take part if you oppened a thread about the occupations.

Edited by omshanti - 26-Jan-2007 at 04:01

OK, First of all , I will apologize for the immaturity and stiff-headedness I have shown.  I should not have reacted to your first post the way I did. I should have considered it  first and asked why you think that way  in stead of calling it irrelevant. I guess that is where I went wrong. I do regret it. I am sorry about that.

I did a big research on Japanese war crimes today and I have to admit that
1. I did not know so many things
2. I was absolutely horrified as I read and found out about them.
I will post a link here for the page about Japanese war crimes in Wikipedia, which is an easy way to find out about them, although it only shows the tip of the iceberg.  Please click     HERE   
As I found out about the horrible things Imperial Japan has done, Few questions came in to my mind. Why is it not known as much as what the Nazi Geramny did? It is actually much worse than the Nazis. Also what kind of mind-set were the Japanese soldiers in to be able to do such cruel and inhuman things?


I will thank you Snowybeagle for giving me a chance to learn.

Going back to the atomic bombs, no matter how hard I searched I could not find out how many people were dying per day under the Japanese occupation at the time when the atomic bombs were dropped. I am not forgetting what you wrote here

Originally posted by snowybeagle [The figures are not commonly agreed, but one mentioned in "Downfall: The End of The Imperial Japanese Empire" by Richard B. Frank put it as "In the occupied territories, the death rate for the nationals totaled some 100,000 a month --- through forced labor, starvation, and outright murder."

but I am not sure whether people were dying in this high rate at the end of the war when the atomic bombs were dropped in Japan.

Originally posted by snowybeagle ]The Soviets only launched Operation August Storm *after* Hiroshima bombing, on the same day as Nagasaki bombing.

Have a look at this regarding the Soviet invasion.

Operation August Storm, or the Battle of Manchuria began on August 8, 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo; the greater invasion would eventually include neighboring Mengjiang, as well as northern Korea, southern Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands. It marked the initial and only military action of the Soviet Union against the Empire of Japan; at the Yalta Conference, it had agreed to Allied pleas to terminate the neutrality pact with Japan and enter the Second World War's Pacific Theater within three months after the end of the war in Europe.
The invasion began on August 8, 1945, precisely three months after the German surrender on May 8. Notably, it began between the droppings of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

This shows that the Soviets did not decide to invade because of the bombs  but rather that America dropped the bombs knowing the Soviets will invade at any time.

My logic is that
1. if many more people were going to die under the Japanese occupation if the atomic bombs were not dropped, then the deaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be accepted as just the way life is, some people die in order for other people to survive.
2,  On the other hand If the death rate under Japanese occupation was no longer high at that stage of the war and the war was going to end soon regardless of the atomic bombs , then the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were absolutely meaningless.

Of course in neither case should the dropping of  the atomic bombs be justified , but at least if the case no.1 was the case, it can be accepted (not justified) as just the way life is, as a sacrifice. So snowybeagle , I hope you understand what I am trying to say. Let's explore which was the case.


Edited by omshanti - 25-Jan-2007 at 08:41

This will be my last try.

You are just being unfair now.

Originally posted by snowybeagle Let me show you the actual context of my statement above.

Since you seem to be obseesed with the word ''context'' I will quote the whole context from my post.

Originally posted by omshanti Why are you writing in present tense? Do you think that the occupation is� still continuing? No body is questioning any death here. The question is whether the bombs were really necessary to end the war quickly.Any way , nice highjacking of a thread. The thread is about the atomic bombs, not the occupations.

That is what I wrote. Don't just pick a part of my post to suit yourself using ''context'' as the reason. Don't play the game of ''my statement'' ''your statement'' with me using ''context'' for the reason to only pick a part of my post that suits your argument.




Any way let's think about the actual situation of Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped.

1, Japan was a small nation with it's force scattered all over Asia and the Pacific fighting with antiquated weapons against America and the allied forces. It was being overly out-numbered and out-powered in all the battles and was losing all the battles of the war towards the end of the war.

2, In Tokyo alone more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined together had already died because of heavy firebombings.

3, It's ally Germany had already surrendered.

4, America was already in the territory of Japan invading from the south and the Soviets already invading from the north , Japan hardly had any capable military left to fight against two super powers within it's own territory.

In short Japan was on the verge of losing the war and it was a matter of days before it surrendered, few weeks at the most.

This is the situation when the atomic bombs were dropped. It is quite clear that America dropped the bombs
1, to test the newly developed nuclear bombs
2, to show the world (especially to the Soviet Union) America's power
3, To avoid losing half of Japan to communism like Germany.

In Hiroshima an estimated 140,000 people and in Nagasaki 74,000 people died due to the atomic bombs.


Edited by omshanti - 24-Jan-2007 at 09:14

See, you are ignoring what I wrote. I wrote in my post ''the question is whether the bombs were really necessary to end the war quickly'' and you completely ignore it and write this over it.

Originally posted by snowybeagle The use of the atomic bomb is for ending the war, forcing the surrender as quickly as possible.

Originally posted by snowybeagle To call it highjacking the thread is just a way to avoid admitting this potential impact exists and addressing it.

You are not talking about ''potential impacts'' at all . You are set in your mind that the war and the occupation whould have lasted if the atomic bombs were not dropped, ignore/twist every idea or questioning that is against your belief/logic, and are only talking about the occupation itself regardless of the atomic bombs.

This is becoming really silly now. I really do not have enough time to waste like this. You are free to believe in your own belief/logic, to ignore or twist anything and to write whatever you want , but let me tell you again, I beg to differ. From now on I will only reply if you do not twist things in your posts.

Edited by omshanti - 23-Jan-2007 at 22:16

Originally posted by snowybeagle Originally posted by omshanti I can not, because the bombs were dropped and this is an unchangable fact. Every thing that is about ''if the bombs were not dropped'' is speculation, and nor can you say any thing for sure about what would have happened if the bombs were not dropped. The bombs were dropped and we can onlyguess what would have happened if they were not dropped. If the Bomb was not used, Japan's surrender and  the timing of Japan's surrender are, according to the same rational highlighted above, is also no less a matter of speculation.

When I wrote that it is speculation, I did not exclude what I am saying, and that is why I wrote ''I can not'' in the beginning. I think it is very clear from what I wrote that when I said speculation I meant every possibility including my own idea too. Also, to advocate means to speak in favour of. When did I speak in favour of an idea in what you quoted or highlighted from my post? I only pointed out the fact that every thing that is about ''if the bombs were not dropped'' is speculation. I really do not understand how you read a post and make something completely different out of it.

Originally posted by snowybeagle Originally posted by omshanti The point is instead of leaving it as an open question , you are set in your mind regarding what would have happened if the bombs were not dropped, and you are judging the people who oppose the bombs based on your set mind. Originally posted by snowybeagle How about this to sum up the sentiments of some of the opposition to the Bomb: Between letting more victims die under Japanese occupation, and bombing Japanese civilians (no distinction between nuclear and conventional bombing here), always choose the former. Re-read my post. I said *some* of the opposition, not all.

If you re-read my post you will notice that I did not use the word ''all'. Any way that was not the point of what I wrote. You are just twisting every thing. Not surprising at all though, you have been twisting the argument in every post and response you have been writing in this thread.

Originally posted by snowybeagle But the very existence of these deaths should not be questioned, nor is there any grounds for optimism that the occupation force would cease/relent its actions leading to the deaths in the delay of the surrender.

Why are you writing in present tense? Do you think that the occupation is  still continuing?

No body is questioning any death here. The question is whether the bombs were really necessary to end the war quickly.

Any way , nice highjacking of a thread. The thread is about the atomic bombs, not the occupations. You come accusing the people who oppose the bombs in a thread which discusses the bombs, twist every argument that is against your logic and write over or ignore responses, and change the subject of the thread to another subject.
Look, this is becoming really silly and a waste of time. We are talking on a completely different wavelengths,  I even doubt that we are using the same language.
You are free to twist everything again and write anything you want , But let me tell you now , I beg to differ.

Edited by omshanti - 23-Jan-2007 at 20:19