Even after the second atomic bomb, the Japanese still refused to surrender. They did not agree until the US said that they could keep their emperor. Even then, there was a faction of the Japanese military that wanted to launch a coup so they could keep fighting.
There was a projected 40-50% casualty rate for US troops if we had invaded Japan. And there was also the fear that Russia would occupy northern Japan. Can you imagine a post-war agreement that created two countries, a North Japan and a South Japan?
Posted by muckdog at August 6, 2005 01:30 PMNote that there was a second fairly good reason for dropping the Nagasaki bomb immediately which I saw made much of at the Hiroshima memorial when I visited: the Hiroshima bomb used uranium whereas the Nagasaki one used plutonium. The significance of this is that uranium requires a very difficult, slow and costly process of isotope refinement using centrifuges to extract the isotope usable in a bomb. The Hiroshima bomb used up most of the US's stockpile of refined uranium and another bomb of that design could not have been dropped for some considerable time. The US feared that the Japanese might either learn of this through espionage or suspect it from general principles, and call the US's bluff. So when the Nagasaki bomb was dropped, a large number of leaflets in Japanese were dropped with it, drawing attention to the fact that it was a plutonium bomb and could be mass produced.
Posted by Mark Barton at August 6, 2005 02:58 PMWar is hell; you cannot refine it, so said William Tecumsah Sherman. Between December 1937 and March 1938 the Imperial Japanese Army slaughtered approximately 369,000 Chinese civilians and prisoners of war in Manchuria, China, which the Chinese remember and despise Japan for to this day. The Japanese brought the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki upon themselves when they chose the path of conquest and war. I mean not to justify the slaughter, only to point out it is part of a larger human tragedy.
Posted by Mr Damage at August 6, 2005 03:47 PMIt seems to me that the lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that these weapons should never be used again, because now we know how awful they are. It seems like one of the reasons the films taken right after the bombing were held from the public for so many years was because it was feared that if people knew how horrible the bombs were, they would revolt from even a whisper of using atomic weapons in the future. We need to understand how bad these bombs were in order to make sure our government never uses them again.
Posted by Mary at August 6, 2005 05:23 PMRather than rehash the rationale for the blasts and the judgement of those who authorized them 60 years ago, we should be able to reach consensus that the very nature of this type of warfare is abominable and cannot be practiced under any conditions. Today we have a President who is insisting on the authority to develop and utilize low-yield nuclear blasts to neutralize WMD threats that are housed in fortified, underground bunkers. The Bunker Busters have the capability to perform such a task, but what is clearly absent is the reliability of intelligence to justify their use. Any President given the authority to use such weapons is at a clear risk of fallibility because our intelligence has on a consistent basis provided results below an acceptable standard. If a President orders a strike using tactical nuclear warheads and is wrong in doing so, it is the American people who are to blame. We govern the President ultimately.
The debate, I feel, should be that America should be annunciating more forcefully than any other nation that the use of these weapons should be prohibited. Why? Because we used them against a hostile foe and we should be the first to say that they are an unconscionable use of force. Saying that "War is Hell" and consigning that there will be no limits to the conduct of warfare in a practical sense is the ultimate moral cop-out. Actors in combat are then free to discard the Geneva Conventions, and any recognized rules of engagement. It is an ethical black hole.
We should speak clearly to the President that neither he or his successors are to be entrusted with the authority to deploy limited yield tactical nuclear weapons, and the use of depleted uranium in artillery shells will be eliminated as well. The trade off is that the ability to force outcomes on the battlefield will be made more difficult for troops on the ground. So be it. Are we ready to foreswear the use of nuclear weapons even if it means the loss of more of our armed forces? We need to be.
Posted by obelus at August 6, 2005 05:41 PMReading of bunker busters reminds me of Dr. Suess's Butter Battle book. We (meaning humans) will always invest more in ways to kill one another than heal one another. Perhaps bunker busters will come to be and then we will have hot spots all over the world. Will the medical and scientific commnity then find ways to counter-act the effect?
I, for one, don't have much hope for our group. More countries have the technology to kill us all than ever before. (As a side note, shouldn't Isreal be forced to admit that it too has the capacity and should sign onto treaties?)
Posted by dorita at August 6, 2005 06:50 PMIt seems to me that the lesson of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that these weapons should never be used again, because now we know how awful they are. Posted by Mary
Absolutely, that is the lesson we should have learned. The problem, as I see it right now, is that we have a man with no conscious sitting in the WH who would have no problem using these bombs to help further his New World Order.
Posted by Judith at August 7, 2005 06:47 AMThere are rules of war about targeting civilians. To ignore the rules and target civilians is a war crime. The firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden were war crimes. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes.
All of the discussion regarding how the war would have gone without the bombings don't change the facts that these were war crimes.
Do we really want to keep company with folks like Pol Pot, Idi Amin and others, that's up to you, but if we must have war (and I do not believe we must) should we wage war in compliance with the rules of war that we have negotiated and agreed to?
If not, we are war criminals.
Posted by angel at August 7, 2005 08:20 AM