OzOne wrote in message

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 05:13:10 GMT, "Maxprop"
scribbled thusly:


OzOne wrote in message

As opposed to dropping A bombs on cities "to save lives"

1. They started the war with us.
2. They vowed to fight to "the death of every Japanese man, woman, and
child," even when it was clearly obvious that they could not win.
3. We would have accomplished the same thing over a period of time with
conventional weapons, had the Japanese not surrendered, which was
unlikely.
4. It had to happen. Nuclear weapons had been developed, initially by
the
Germans and brought to fruition by the Americans. Someone at some time
had
to use a nuke, if for no other reason than to demonstrate to the world the
awesome destructive power of such weapons. The whole concept of MAD
(mutual
assured destruction), which kept the cold war from heating up for nearly
40
years, would not have been realized had no one ever dropped "the bomb."
It
was an inevitable step in the evolution of international relations, like
it
or not.
5. The Japanese deserved it.

Max


Max, have you ever heard anything about this
http://tinyurl.com/57pvh

"he first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 5, 1945;
the second was detonated over Nagasaki four days later. On August 8th,
the Soviet Union declared war on an already beaten Japan. But other
Japanese attempts to surrender had been coming fast and furious prior
to these historically important developments.

One of the most compelling was transmitted by General MacArthur to
President Roosevelt in January 1945, prior to the Yalta conference.
MacArthur's communiqué stated that the Japanese were willing to
surrender under terms which included:

. Full surrender of Japanese forces on sea, in the air, at home, on
island possessions, and in occupied countries.

. Surrender of all arms and munitions. · Occupation of the Japanese
homeland and island possessions by allied troops under American
direction.

. Japanese relinquishment of Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa, as well as
all territory seized during the war.

. Regulation of Japanese industry to halt present and future
production of implements of war.

. Turning over of Japanese which the United States might designate war
criminals.

. Release of all prisoners of war and internees in Japan and in areas
under Japanese control.

Amazingly, these were identical to the terms which were accepted by
our government for the surrender of Japan seven months later. Had they
been accepted when first offered, there would have been no heavy loss
of life on Iwo Jima (over 26,033 Americans killed or wounded,
approximately 21,000 Japanese killed) and Okinawa (over 39,000 U.S.
dead and wounded, 109,000 Japanese dead), no fire bombing of Japanese
cities by B-29 bombers (it is estimated that the dropping of 1,700
tons of incendiary explosives on Japanese cities during March 9th-10th
alone killed over 80,000 civilians and destroyed 260,000 buildings),
and no use of the atomic bomb.

Countless thousands of Japanese civilians perished as a result of the
atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the world was
suddenly and violently brought into the atomic age."

Makes you think that the lives of all those, Japanese and Allies were
sacrificed because the bomb needed to be completed and tested.

Nice piece of revisionist history, Oz, but it won't fly.

On July 26, 1945 (it was 7/27 am in Tokyo) the Potsdam Proclaim was
broadcast in Japanese, demanding unconditional surrender. The Japanese
rejected it, complaining that no provision had been made to insure the
protection of Emperor Hirohito, whom they believed to be a god. At this
time Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of Army General Staff, and a number of other
top-ranking officers, vowed to "fight to the death of every Japanese man,
woman, and child . . ." Soon thereafter American troop carriers, such as
the Indianapolis, were sunk, with substantial loss of life. On August 6,
1945, Hiroshima was bombed with a type of weapon previously unused in
combat. Nagasaki followed. On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered
unconditionally, having indicated a desire to do so some three weeks
earlier.

The best independent (read: non-government) experts on WWII, South Pacific
Theater, are convinced that the war would have lingered for another 6 months
to a year, had the bombs not been used. Only the anti-US revisionists
believe otherwise. I have no doubt on which side of the issue you fall.

Max

1. They started the war with us.

Yep. It made sense, from their point of view, at the time. Japan in the
late 1920s and the 1930s headed down the same track that the U.S. is on
now ie gov't closely aligned with military industries.

2. They vowed to fight to "the death of every Japanese man, woman, and
child," even when it was clearly obvious that they could not win.

Also true, although it's hard to say wether every single Japanese man,
woman, and child, would have agreed.

3. We would have accomplished the same thing over a period of time with
conventional weapons, had the Japanese not surrendered, which was
unlikely.

We definitely could have accomplished the same thing over a longer
period of time.

4. It had to happen. Nuclear weapons had been developed, initially by
the
Germans and brought to fruition by the Americans.

Utter nonsense.

"It _had_ to happen" ??!?!!

The German nuclear research projects underway in the late 1930s was hurt
by the flight of some of their best scientists, most notably of course
Einstein, and most of the scientists remaining (while probably capable
of building a bomb, or at least radiation enhanced weapons) despised the
Nazis and would never have built such weapons for Hitler.

Remember, the fascist (or Bushist) state distrusts & shackles science,
sneers at intellect, and stamps out open enquiry.



It
was an inevitable step in the evolution of international relations, like
it
or not.

Jingoistic malarkey

5. The Japanese deserved it.

Possibly. But would you agree that had the Japanese developed the bomb
first (and they were closer than a lot of people think), tied one to one
of their strategic balloon bombers, and nuked the U.S. mainland, that we
"deserved it"?

Max, have you ever heard anything about this
http://tinyurl.com/57pvh

"he first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 5, 1945;
the second was detonated over Nagasaki four days later. On August 8th,
the Soviet Union declared war on an already beaten Japan. But other
Japanese attempts to surrender had been coming fast and furious prior
to these historically important developments.

There was no communication between the U.S. and Japanese gov'ts. There
were some attempts made by indirect channels to open negotiations, most
notably right after Pearl Harbor and early 1945. IIRC most of these
attempts went through Dutch colonial offices. The U.S. gov't rejected
these attempts to open negotiations, partly because there was no point
in negotiating peace when you're on the verge of victory (kind of like a
sports team down XXX to 0 in the last minute, offering a tie) and partly
because of commitments to the other Allies.



Amazingly, these were identical to the terms which were accepted by
our government for the surrender of Japan seven months later.

That is simply not true. The terms offered by the U.S. later in 1945
were rejected because we demanded that they give up the Emperor. Dozens
of historians, notably Shirer, have covered this point.


Makes you think that the lives of all those, Japanese and Allies were
sacrificed because the bomb needed to be completed and tested.


There was some motivation toward that by the military industrialists,
but I don't think it was the over riding factor at all. For one thing,
Truman became Vice President and then President because he had uncovered
the Manhatten Project in his Senate investigation of Army finances, and
he never considered *not* dropping the bomb.

Maxprop wrote:
Nice piece of revisionist history, Oz, but it won't fly.

On July 26, 1945 (it was 7/27 am in Tokyo) the Potsdam Proclaim was
broadcast in Japanese, demanding unconditional surrender.

I don't think the entire proclamation was broadcast, but that's a
quibble. More to the point, how good a translation do you think it was?
Possibly a bit like those garbled instruction manuals, hmm?


... The Japanese
rejected it, complaining that no provision had been made to insure the
protection of Emperor Hirohito, whom they believed to be a god.

Hmmph. You really swallow the whole package, don't you Max? The Japanese
revered the Emperor, in the same way that many in the U.S. revere
President Bush. However nobody seriously thought he was a god. Bear in
mind also that the military junta in charge of Japan used reverence for
the Emperor as a political tool, and juiced it all they could.

In short, lots of error and wishful thinking on both sides. No decision,
next inning please.

DSK

Doug,

An awful lot I don't agree it but I certainly disagree about not
believing the emperor a God. They believed it. He was a God on a White
Horse. He had to issue a written statement to his people that he wasn't
a God.

Sorry Buddy, You're way off on that one

Ole Thom


http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomsHomePage

http://community.webtv.net/tassail/NutsysTelescopic

Thom Stewart wrote:
Doug,

An awful lot I don't agree it but I certainly disagree about not
believing the emperor a God. They believed it. He was a God on a White
Horse. He had to issue a written statement to his people that he wasn't
a God.

Sorry Buddy, You're way off on that one


Why are you so eager to believe that other people are stupid?

Would *you* believe the Emperor is a god?

The Japanese nation is (and was at the time) one of the best educated
people on the planet. They didn't build some of the most advanced
weapons of the time (and build all sorts of high tech gizmos since) by
believing in a lot of superstitious clap-trap.

Sorry buddy, I'm not off at all on this one. Think about it.

DSK

Doug,

You think about it! They were educated to believe in the Emperor God,
Sintoizm, Hari Kari, Kamikazi (Devine Wind of Deliverance) They were a
rather poorly educated chaste society in the 1930 & 1940. The commoner
were educated like trained animals. They were a very nice people but at
that time highly educated they weren't. The Elite did not want them
fully educated.

Doug I knew them. I seen the masses really blossom under Democratic
Life. They were not STUPID; they were held back!

Ole Thom


http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomsHomePage

http://community.webtv.net/tassail/NutsysTelescopic

Thom Stewart wrote:
Doug,

You think about it!

I have.

I have also avoided being indoctrinated with a lot of propaganda about
how those inscrutable little yellow devils are all ancestor-worhipping
dunces.

... They were educated to believe in the Emperor God,
Sintoizm, Hari Kari, Kamikazi (Devine Wind of Deliverance)

Bull****.

Shintoism is quite simple and direct. It is a natural expression of the
human belief that there is more going on in the world than meets the eye.

Hari Kari is a vulgar term for suicide, which is properly termed
seppuku. The cultural belief in honorable suicide is basically the
ultimate in "death before dishonor." Think about where else you might
have heard that...

Kamikaze is two words: Kami = spirit and Kaze = wind. Often translated
as "divine wind," the word originally meant the typhoon which destroyed
Kublai Khan's invasion fleet and saved Japan. This was an actual
historical event and is well documented.

.... They were a
rather poorly educated chaste society in the 1930 & 1940.

More bull****. The Japanese were a feudal society in 1870, and by 1900
had adopted *all* the technological advances Europe and America could
teach them. You claim that two generation later, they were backwards &
ignorant? Sorry, you're still looking at comic books, not reality.


Doug I knew them. I seen the masses really blossom under Democratic
Life. They were not STUPID; they were held back!

Thom, the Japanese adopted a parliamentary democracy under a monarchy,
which they still have, in 1876. If you saw them blossom under democracy,
then you're a heck of a lot older than I thought!!

Regards
Doug King

"DSK" wrote in message

Thom Stewart wrote:
Doug,

An awful lot I don't agree it but I certainly disagree about not
believing the emperor a God. They believed it. He was a God on a White
Horse. He had to issue a written statement to his people that he wasn't
a God. Sorry Buddy, You're way off on that one


Why are you so eager to believe that other people are stupid?

Would *you* believe the Emperor is a god?

This clearly demonstrates your arrogance and inability to be open-minded.
There were myriad cultural differences between the Japanese and Americans.
There still are today. Just because they believed their leader to be a god
doesn't make them stupid--just different, and with a different set of
beliefs. I suppose you believe Native Americans and Australian Aborigines
to be stupid because they believe that gods control much of their lives and
destinies?


The Japanese nation is (and was at the time) one of the best educated
people on the planet. They didn't build some of the most advanced weapons
of the time (and build all sorts of high tech gizmos since) by believing
in a lot of superstitious clap-trap.

Sorry buddy, I'm not off at all on this one. Think about it.

You're way off, but your ego and your arrogance prevents you from realizing
it.

Max

"DSK" wrote in message

The German nuclear research projects underway in the late 1930s was hurt
by the flight of some of their best scientists, most notably of course
Einstein, and most of the scientists remaining (while probably capable of
building a bomb, or at least radiation enhanced weapons) despised the
Nazis and would never have built such weapons for Hitler.

Is this History 101 According to Doug? The Germans were on the verge of
completing a crude nuclear device when the war ground to a halt in Europe.
They had huge stocks of heavy water, they had fissionable material, somewhat
enriched, and they had the equipment to do the job. That it didn't happen
had more to do with timing than with any particular antipathy toward Hitler
and the Nazis. The Nazis had rather well-known means of *encouraging*
others to do their bidding. Those scientists may have claimed to have
stalled the process, but had the European war continued for another year,
most of them would have been killed, had they not created a nuclear weapon.

Jingoistic malarkey

How then do you explain 40 years of *cold* war? You seem to have all the
answers. Wrong ones, but answers, nonetheless. It's highly doubtful that
either the USA or the USSR would have been restrained by mutual assured
destruction had the devastating effects of atomic weapons not been
witnessed.

Possibly. But would you agree that had the Japanese developed the bomb
first (and they were closer than a lot of people think), tied one to one
of their strategic balloon bombers, and nuked the U.S. mainland, that we
"deserved it"?

Hmmm. Let's see: The Japanese had joined forces ideologically with Germany
and the Axis powers to achieve world domination under a dictator or group of
dictators. The Japanese sneak attacked us, knowing we wouldn't stand by
forever while they occupied more and more of the south Pacific and
ultimately parts of Asia. We, OTOH, retaliated, and fought against the sort
of despotic tyranny that an Axis victory would have wrought. No, I don't
think we would have deserved to be nuked. I'm glad we weren't.


There was no communication between the U.S. and Japanese gov'ts. There
were some attempts made by indirect channels to open negotiations, most
notably right after Pearl Harbor and early 1945. IIRC most of these
attempts went through Dutch colonial offices. The U.S. gov't rejected
these attempts to open negotiations, partly because there was no point in
negotiating peace when you're on the verge of victory (kind of like a
sports team down XXX to 0 in the last minute, offering a tie) and partly
because of commitments to the other Allies.

There was another aspect--the Japanese would not consider any form of
unconditional surrender. The Allies all felt that only after an
unconditional surrender, following which the Japanese would dismantle their
entire war-making machine, including disbanding the army, navy, etc. and
destroying all small arms and other ordnance, would a lasting peace be
possible. There was a substantiated fear that Japan might once again become
a formidable opponent. The Japanese rejected the Potsdam Proclaim less than
a month before the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. IF they truly had
been desirous of a surrender, they would at least have suggested talks. The
PP was met with silence from Japan.


I don't think the entire proclamation was broadcast, but that's a quibble.
More to the point, how good a translation do you think it was? Possibly a
bit like those garbled instruction manuals, hmm?

One of Hirohito's own secretaries reported, after the war, that the Potsdam
Proclaim was understood clearly by the Japanese government at the time it
was broadcast. They discussed it for days, but the military leaders were
intractable. They wanted to fight to the bitter end.

... The Japanese rejected it, complaining that no provision had been
made to insure the protection of Emperor Hirohito, whom they believed to
be a god.


Hmmph. You really swallow the whole package, don't you Max?

No more than you swallow what you choose to believe. Which, incidentally,
is generally liberal revisionist history. Neither you nor I were alive
then, so we must depend upon others for the information. Who is correct?
We may never know.

The Japanese revered the Emperor, in the same way that many in the U.S.
revere President Bush. However nobody seriously thought he was a god.

My statement was probably not quite correct. They believed Hirohito to be
"like a god." They believed he had to be protected at ANY cost.

Bear in mind also that the military junta in charge of Japan used
reverence for the Emperor as a political tool, and juiced it all they
could.

In short, lots of error and wishful thinking on both sides. No decision,
next inning please.

Jesus, Doug, no war is perfect in its planning and execution. Errors are
made on both sides constantly. And the variables are infinite. The side
that makes the fewer errors generally wins. I personally believe the US and
the Allied forces were on the right side, and Japan was on the wrong side.
But I don't care to get into a philosophical argument over this point. My
contention stands: Japan deserved what it got. Most recently the prime
minister of Japan apologized for his country's aggression toward the US at
Pearl Harbor. I accept his apology, but make no apology for dropping two
nukes on his homeland.

Max

Oz,

When the AXIS powers were winning the war they started, it was decided
that they would be beaten to a Unconditional Surrender. This was
approved by a mass majority of the people living under Allied Nations.
That meant NO TERMS!! That is what they got. They got to feel the HORROR
they dealt out to others. They deserved to feel the Bombing, the
occupation, the despair of defeat they had done to other. It was
decide;- NO DEALS! That is what they got.

Germany, Italy and Japan were taught the full weight of DEFEAT that
they deserved

Ole Thom


http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomsHomePage

"Thom Stewart" wrote in message
...
Oz,


Germany, Italy and Japan were taught the full weight of DEFEAT that
they deserved

Ole Thom


http://community.webtv.net/tassail/ThomsHomePage


Problem with "collective guilt" is that it lets the real perpetrators hide
behind their country, and it allows for the indiscriminate slaughter of
civilians. Think 9-11.

John Cairns