On Nov 4, 8:07?am, "Eisboch" wrote:


You realize, of course, that one of the reasons Truman fired MacArthur
during the Korean conflict is because MacArthur publicly pushed for using
nukes on the Chinese after they (the Chinese) became involved.

Eisboch

And if you take the broadest possible view of the situation, that
actually reinforces MacArthur's statement about the use of the atomic
bomb to end the war with Japan.

MacArthur never said, "We shouldn't have nuked Japan because it was
morally wrong", but instead said that we didn't need to nuke Japan
because the country was already willing to capitulate if we would
simply let them keep the institution of the Emperor as one of the
conditions in the documents of surrender (which we ultimately did).

MacArthur apparently felt that we couldn't win the war in Korea unless
we *did* nuke China. It would be difficult to make a resounding case
that we achieved a decisive victory in Korea, so maybe MacArthur was
right.

So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

Chuck Gould wrote:
On Nov 4, 8:07?am, "Eisboch" wrote:

You realize, of course, that one of the reasons Truman fired MacArthur
during the Korean conflict is because MacArthur publicly pushed for using
nukes on the Chinese after they (the Chinese) became involved.

Eisboch

And if you take the broadest possible view of the situation, that
actually reinforces MacArthur's statement about the use of the atomic
bomb to end the war with Japan.

MacArthur never said, "We shouldn't have nuked Japan because it was
morally wrong", but instead said that we didn't need to nuke Japan
because the country was already willing to capitulate if we would
simply let them keep the institution of the Emperor as one of the
conditions in the documents of surrender (which we ultimately did).

Capitulate is not the same as unconditional surrender. The end result of
the war in the Pacific was always unconditional surrender from Japan.

MacArthur apparently felt that we couldn't win the war in Korea unless
we *did* nuke China. It would be difficult to make a resounding case
that we achieved a decisive victory in Korea, so maybe MacArthur was
right.

The Korean War has not ended, there has been no victory nor defeat on
either side of the 38th parallel.

So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

Douglas MacArthur was of the opinion that he was a demi-god

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

Douglas MacArthur was of the opinion that he was a demi-god


Wasnt' there a book about him called "The American Caesar"?

Chuck Gould wrote:
On Nov 4, 8:07?am, "Eisboch" wrote:

You realize, of course, that one of the reasons Truman fired MacArthur
during the Korean conflict is because MacArthur publicly pushed for using
nukes on the Chinese after they (the Chinese) became involved.

Eisboch

And if you take the broadest possible view of the situation, that
actually reinforces MacArthur's statement about the use of the atomic
bomb to end the war with Japan.

MacArthur never said, "We shouldn't have nuked Japan because it was
morally wrong", but instead said that we didn't need to nuke Japan
because the country was already willing to capitulate if we would
simply let them keep the institution of the Emperor as one of the
conditions in the documents of surrender (which we ultimately did).

Capitulate is not the same as unconditional surrender. The end result of
the war in the Pacific was always unconditional surrender from Japan.

MacArthur apparently felt that we couldn't win the war in Korea unless
we *did* nuke China. It would be difficult to make a resounding case
that we achieved a decisive victory in Korea, so maybe MacArthur was
right.

The Korean War has not ended, there has been no victory nor defeat on
either side of the 38th parallel.

So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

Douglas MacArthur was of the opinion that he was a demi-god. See above
regarding unconditional surrender.

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

On Nov 4, 2:35 pm, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:00:20 -0800, Chuck Gould

wrote:
So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

We still had the problem of convincing the Japanese army they were
beat.
They had been raised with the "no surrender" ethic and without the
horrible spectre of the A bombs I am not sure we would have been
successful in getting them to stop fighting.

Some people just won't beleive that, no matter how it came out. We are
the bad guys here, always making the wrong decisions after being
attacked and treated like animals... stupid us...

Now, just like then, the best way to support the troops is to let em'
win... and that's never pretty.

wrote in message
ups.com...


Some people just won't beleive that, no matter how it came out. We are
the bad guys here, always making the wrong decisions after being
attacked and treated like animals... stupid us...

Now, just like then, the best way to support the troops is to let em'
win... and that's never pretty.


You just said a mouthful.

War is hell. Avoid it if you can, but pull out all the stops if you can't.

Eisboch

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...


Some people just won't beleive that, no matter how it came out. We are
the bad guys here, always making the wrong decisions after being
attacked and treated like animals... stupid us...

Now, just like then, the best way to support the troops is to let em'
win... and that's never pretty.


You just said a mouthful.

War is hell. Avoid it if you can, but pull out all the stops if you
can't.

Eisboch


Amen....

On Nov 4, 3:47 pm, "Eisboch" wrote:
wrote in message

ups.com...



Some people just won't beleive that, no matter how it came out. We are
the bad guys here, always making the wrong decisions after being
attacked and treated like animals... stupid us...

Now, just like then, the best way to support the troops is to let em'
win... and that's never pretty.

You just said a mouthful.

War is hell. Avoid it if you can, but pull out all the stops if you can't.

Eisboch

Pull out all the stops?? Hell even the cowboy in the White House
doesn't think like that! We have the capability and armament to
vaporize any country in the world that we wish. So, who first?

On Nov 4, 11:49?am, wrote:
On Nov 4, 2:35 pm, wrote:





On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:00:20 -0800, Chuck Gould

wrote:
So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

We still had the problem of convincing the Japanese army they were
beat.
They had been raised with the "no surrender" ethic and without the
horrible spectre of the A bombs I am not sure we would have been
successful in getting them to stop fighting.

Some people just won't beleive that, no matter how it came out. We are
the bad guys here, always making the wrong decisions after being
attacked and treated like animals... stupid us...


There are few decisons ever made that are all good or all bad. On any
level. Most of the decisions we ever make will have certain
consequences we could not have foreseen when making them. Examining
the consequnces of past decisions can help us make better choices,
(sometimes), in the future.

The problem with adopting a view that "Everything we do is always
wrong" or the reverse, "Everything we do is always right" is that it
precludes learning from past results. We live in a very competitive
world, and if we rest on our moral laurels unwilling to examine the
process by which we make decisions, our motivations behind some of
those decisions, and the positive/negative/unintended consequences of
those decisions we can expect to be overtaken (maybe even physically)
by a society willing to be more objective in its self analysis.

Love for your country should be like love for your kids, not love of
your God. If you're religious, you never question God and simply
follow what you believe is divine will. Because you love your kids,
you will be concerned for their welfare, willing to sacrifice and
rearrange priorities to provide for them, and concerned at all times
for their welfare. If you truly love your kids you don't normally say,
"Go ahead and do whatever you want. Because you're my kids you can't
possibly do anything wrong and whatever choice you make you can count
on me to support 100%." When you love your kids, you help them learn
to make the best possible choices, and part of that process is
examining the results of choices made in the past.

There is no question that nuking those two cities in Japan
precipitated an end to the war. From that perspective, the tactic was
successful.
It's not wrong or unpatriotic to examine whether there were options
available at the time, and if there were, whether we chose the best
one.




Now, just like then, the best way to support the troops is to let em'
win...

Another way to support the troops is to avoid sending them into combat
without a clearly defined mission (makes it much harder to "win") and
when the security of the United States or an ally is not at stake. I'd
like to see us learn from some of our difficulties in the last 60
years and become more adept at fighting guerilla warriors. We've got
the "beat an organized army" aspect down pretty well, we need to
improve our ability to handle quasi-civilian enemies who strike from
ambush and then disappear into a crowd of innocent bystanders.

On Nov 4, 11:35?am, wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:00:20 -0800, Chuck Gould

wrote:
So Douglas MacArthur cannot be counted among those who were *morally*
opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, only among those who claim to
have felt, back in 1945, that using nuclear weapons on Japan was not
*strategically* necessary to force a Japanese surrender.
In fact, he claims to have thought that Japan would have surrendered
weeks before the bomb was dropped (and of course that event would have
saved American lives as well) if we had been flexible enough to allow
them to keep the Emperor in place.

One of the many shoulda, coulda, wouldas, and what-ifs of discussing
history. :-)

We still had the problem of convincing the Japanese army they were
beat.
They had been raised with the "no surrender" ethic and without the
horrible spectre of the A bombs I am not sure we would have been
successful in getting them to stop fighting.

You may be right. Or not- from the aspect that these troops were so
loyal to the Emperor that they would follow his orders to use suicide
tactics in battle. Why would an army that valued blind obedience not
lay down its arms when ordered to do so by the same Emperor?
Not having been there in the day, I don't know.

I'm only remarking on what Douglas MacArthur said his opinion was at
that time. Somehow, I am foolish enough to place a very high
credibilty in the opinions of professional military commanders when it
comes to matters of specific strategy to win a war. Even when they are
wrong, at least they are operating in their area of expertise- unlike
civilian CIC's, congressmen, talk show hosts, and everybody else who
tries to run a war from an armchair. :-)