Nagasaki

[yen]

It was a miswording on my part, however, I don't see the need for insults like "Is english your first language?". People make mistakes you know...

 

[cenimo]

yen

I fail to see what I am to deal with here? Doesn't change the fact that there were still camps and it shouldn't have happened.

No, it doesn't change the fact that there were camps. It emphasizes the fact that in spit of the camps and even having had been in them these men fought for their country, what they considered their country (Hawaii not a state at the time), and fought very heroically. Now if they could get passed it, why can't all those criticizing Amerca for it?

 

[yen]

I refuse to get past it because I see the same things going on currently with people of Middle Eastern decent, but again, not to the same degree as having large internment camps for citizens. Many citizens though have been wrongly targeted, some kept in jail while others released. Now including someone I know, who is about to lose everything she has worked for so hard in this country.

Rather, the causes for this unprecedented action in American history, according to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, "were motivated largely by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a failure of political leadership."

Despite this redress, the mental and physical health impacts of the trauma of the internment experience continue to affect tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. Health studies have shown a 2 times greater incidence of heart disease and premature death among former internees, compared to noninterned Japanese Americans.

http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/
A PBS Documentary about the lives of 6 Japanese Americans who were children at the camps.

 

[Force]

http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/
A PBS Documentary about the lives of 6 Japanese Americans who were children at the camps.

I just think it's funny how you will bring this up all the time as a defense to everything but you fail to awknowledge the other side of the matter.

How about you watch the PBS special on the POW's of the Pacific...and even that doesnt even begin to scratch the surface on how horrible the Japanese were.

The children werent abused, or beat, or starved, or killed or tortured or raped. The POW's and civilians were.

 

[TScott]

I refuse to get past it because I see the same things going on currently with people of Middle Eastern decent, but again, not to the same degree as having large internment camps for citizens. Many citizens though have been wrongly targeted, some kept in jail while others released. Now including someone I know, who is about to lose everything she has worked for so hard in this country.





http://www.children-of-the-camps.org/
A PBS Documentary about the lives of 6 Japanese Americans who were children at the camps.

I still don't see what this has to do with Nagasaki. I seems off topic to me, why don't you start a thread entitled "Internment camps"?

 

[yen]

I still don't see what this has to do with Nagasaki. I seems off topic to me, why don't you start a thread entitled "Internment camps"?

I stated earlier that it didn't, just replying to other people is all.

 

[yen]

Words from the men who were directly involved in some way.

Norman Cousins was a consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan. Cousins writes of his conversations with MacArthur, "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed." He continues, "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

Norman Cousins
The Pathology of Power, pg. 65, 70-71.

"The plan I devised was essentially this: Japan was already isolated from the standpoint of ocean shipping. The only remaining means of transportation were the rail network and intercoastal shipping, though our submarines and mines were rapidly eliminating the latter as well. A concentrated air attack on the essential lines of transportation, including railroads and (through the use of the earliest accurately targetable glide bombs, then emerging from development) the Kammon tunnels which connected Honshu with Kyushu, would isolate the Japanese home islands from one another and fragment the enemy's base of operations. I believed that interdiction of the lines of transportation would be sufficiently effective so that additional bombing of urban industrial areas would not be necessary.

"While I was working on the new plan of air attack... I concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945."

-Paul Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost, pg. 36-37

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
-quoted in Barton Bernstein, The Atomic Bomb, pg. 52-56.

PAUL NITZE
Vice Chairman, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey

"I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds."

Ellis Zacharias
Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence
How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.

"...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."


BRIGADIER GENERAL CARTER CLARKE
The military intelligence officer in charge of preparing intercepted Japanese cables - the MAGIC summaries - for Truman and his advisors
Quoted in Gar Alperovitz, The Decision To Use the Atomic Bomb, pg. 359.

"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...".

LEWIS STRAUSS
Special Assistant to the Sec. of the Navy
quoted in Len Giovannitti and Fred Freed, The Decision To Drop the Bomb, pg. 145, 325.

"...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

"During 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 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."

- Dwight Eisenhower
Mandate For Change, pg. 380

 

[john5892]

Hello there,

I just noticed some sources were quoted on this thread about the debate involving the justifications for the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Does anyone have any good sources they can recommend me to look at? I already have got hold of a couple of Truman's Biographies and memoirs of Truman.

Yen - If you don't mind, could you tell me where you managed to find the quotes which you posted in your previous posts? Did you copy them from another internet site?

Many thanks.

 

[john5892]

The reason why I am looking for sources is because I am doing this for my history A level coursework. I have to look at and evaluate the justifications for the bombing.

 

[TScott]

Hello there,

I just noticed some sources were quoted on this thread about the debate involving the justifications for the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Does anyone have any good sources they can recommend me to look at? I already have got hold of a couple of Truman's Biographies and memoirs of Truman.

Yen - If you don't mind, could you tell me where you managed to find the quotes which you posted in your previous posts? Did you copy them from another internet site?

Many thanks.

Try these links

http://www.doug-long.com/marshall.htm



http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Pearlman/pearlman.asp

 

[Aslan]

You know, Japan did give us a warning before the boming of Pearl Harbor, but it, for some reason or another, did not make it. War is war, I believe we were wrong for making that decision, but now it is in the past and I hope a similar occurence will never happen. Japan and the US are in good relations now.

 

[Force]

You know, Japan did give us a warning before the boming of Pearl Harbor, but it, for some reason or another, did not make it.

Would this be the warning they gave while in the middle of peace talks with us?
Just wondering.

 

[Aslan]

I can't really remember much from history in high school, but I think that some ship saw the Japanese planes flying and didn't report it. Or something like that.

 

[Force]

I can't really remember much from history in high school, but I think that some ship saw the Japanese planes flying and didn't report it. Or something like that.

Well find the source but either way thats still not a warning from Japan.

 

[yen]

Yen - If you don't mind, could you tell me where you managed to find the quotes which you posted in your previous posts? Did you copy them from another internet site?

Many thanks.

I did. You can find the quotes I listed along with plenty others at the following address. This particular page of quotes is especially nice because they all contain their sources of information, not just something the site creator dreamed up. They are fascinating to read.

http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

As for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I believe we did have ample warnings, but not directly from Japan itself. I'm a little rusty on this area, but I believe I read there was ample knowledge an attack was going to take place. Also, the attacks were provoked, because the US cut off supplies to Japan, which they desperately needed. Thus, we turned them into enemies.

 

[TScott]

As for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I believe we did have ample warnings, but not directly from Japan itself. I'm a little rusty on this area, but I believe I read there was ample knowledge an attack was going to take place. Also, the attacks were provoked, because the US cut off supplies to Japan, which they desperately needed. Thus, we turned them into enemies.

It's been known for decades that because we had broken the Japanese codes that we knew they were going to attack. The commanders in Hawaii were given war warnings but were led to believe that the Japanese were going to attack south, where they could obtain resources.

In his book, Day of Deceit..., Robert Stinnett, a WWII naval veteran, claims that information that was recently declassified through FOIAs shows that the powers at the top knew that the attack was actually coming to Pearl Harbor, but chose not to warn the forces there. Stinnett claims that FDR wanted Japan to make a direct attack on the US so we could enter the war against the Axis, and that he was actually maneuvering them into doing so.

Obviously not everyone agrees with everything Stinnett says is true, some of his conclusions may be a bit of a stretch, but he makes a good general case. He also does not condemn FDR for essentially sacrificing American lives in order to bring us into the war. At this point in time Britain was barely hanging on, and more importantly, the USSR was on the verge of defeat.

 

[Force]

As for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I believe we did have ample warnings, but not directly from Japan itself. I'm a little rusty on this area, but I believe I read there was ample knowledge an attack was going to take place. Also, the attacks were provoked, because the US cut off supplies to Japan, which they desperately needed. Thus, we turned them into enemies.

Youve been watching too many Ben Affleck movies.

 

[yen]

Youve been watching too many Ben Affleck movies.

Sorry, but I don't care for Ben Affleck nor getting my facts from Hollywood movies. A little bit real researching goes a long way. Those facts were around long before the movie.

I can however see with comments like that no real discussion can take place, just petty insults. So sad

 

[iggy]

Please, people, do not forget that over 700,000 innocent people were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'm inclined to believe that there are always other options, maybe it was hard to find... but it was there. There was a way. Ghandi brought down the British impire in India with non-violent resistance. Why is it that we are so pro-war all the time... it's our society, and it's very sad.

I can't help but tear up when I saw human beings trying to rationaly 'favoring' killing so many innocent people.

Why must the US be a military Super-Power? Why not, instead, be a Humanitarian Super-Power? We have the resources, we could rid starvation in the world ourselves with all the food we have here. But we don't... it's not good for business. And neither was any less violent way of handling Japan... the Atomic Bomb was less costly, in the long run.

-IGGY

 

[Rango]

Why must the US be a military Super-Power? Why not, instead, be a Humanitarian Super-Power? We have the resources, we could rid starvation in the world ourselves with all the food we have here. But we don't... it's not good for business. And neither was any less violent way of handling Japan... the Atomic Bomb was less costly, in the long run.

-IGGY

Well, I like the fact that the US is the world's super power.
Who should it be? The French? Germans? Iranians? As far as providing global welfare that's a burden I am not interested in bearing. Nor would it be helpful. I subscribe to the "give a man a fish and he will ask for one the next day, teach him to fish and he will feed himself" philosophy.

But to get back to the topic and address the pacifist stance, and to especially those who base it on your understanding of Christ, I will submit that your understanding isn't Scriptural.
We are to turn the other cheek, not our responsibilities to our selves or our fellow man.

Luk 22:36 He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

Jesus did indeed approve of self defense, which is not "living by the sword". That's a unrealistic and impractical theology, not taught by the Bible but by men wishing to appear holier than thou. Should we always pursue a peaceful resolution first? Absolutely. I noticed in this thread that the pacifists did not answer the challenge of self defense when put to them in a personal manner, ie. protecting one's wife, children, etc. Pacifism is fine and dandy when you are cocooned in the warmth and security of academia bought by the blood and bravery of good men and women willing to die for that freedom. The reality is that freedom, unfortunantly, is not free.