To cut through all the crap, I’ll just say that looking through the intervening 60 years of hindsight may make alternatives to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem viable to those on the left, but analysis in the light of the moment in time when the decision was made and the bombs were dropped, without including ANY information and analysis which was not available at the time, leads one to conclude that there were in fact NO viable alternatives other than the one of choosing among the 3 or 4 other cities which had also been spared heavy bombing, as sites for deployment.

One commentor mentioned that a recent work published by Harper-Collins makes the claim that at the time the bombs were used that we had dozens of bombs available. This is a patently false and unsupportable claim that is totally at odds with every other source of information that has ever been published regarding the development and deployment of the two bombs used, including numerous first person accounts of the scientists who built the bombs, the Naval personnel who transported the components, and the Air Corps personnel charged with deployiing them. Just because ONE new source makes a claim like this does not make it so. The amount of bomb grade Uranium 235 and Plutonium used for the test device and the two deployed bombs practically exhausted the readily available supply of enriched bomb grade materials, and it would have taken months of painstaking work to process enough to make more bombs.

In the mindset of the country at the time there was no room for “demonstrations”, and as I stated before, the test device at Trinity was a static “proof of concept” test. Two different types of initiators were used in case one proved unsatisfactory, and if one did, then only one bomb would have been available for immediate use.

Some think we were too quick on the trigger in dropping the second bomb on Nagasaki.This too is false when viewed through the lense of August, 1945 and considering nothing learned since. While some of the Japanese hierarchy, led by the Emperor, considered surrender after the first bomb, the military leaders who actually controlled the country would have none of it. The timing of the second bomb was very deliberately considered. The US gave the Japanese leadership long enough to work on a surrender reply, but not so long as to appear that we were not committed to their collective annihilation if they refused for long.

In recent times many on the left have tried to make the US out as evil for choosing to drop the bombs, intimating that US casualties MIGHT not have been as bad as postulated in the lead up to invasion. WIth only what they knew at the time on the table, this is not supportable by any stretch of logic. Casualty estimates were based on the hard cold facts of immediate experience. In a day and age when the loss of 14 of our finest Marines, all from the same unit, and in a single engagement, brings a collective gasp of horror from the entire Nation, it is hard to grasp the impact of the huge numbers of casualties we were taking daily in WWII. Combat actions in WWII often might result in only 14 marines SURVIVING out of a single unit following a single engagement.

The Japanese were right about one thing. If they could cause enough casualties and drag things out long enough we might give up and offer terms in spite of how badly we were beating them. The problem was that they were 60 years ahead in their thinking, of a couple of generations of American “moonbats” being born and entering into the political discourse. It most likely wouldn’t have worked in 1945.

Oddly enough I saw some interviews of some Japanese civilians on television last night, who were actually thankful for the dropping of the bombs, including one man who lost a brother and mother to one of the bombs. The consensus among them was that the bombs hastened the end of the war and avoided a protracted invasion and pacification, that probably would have resulted in their own deaths.

a) “Claims” is still the operative word. Considering that I have been interested in this topic for about 35 years, and this is the very FIRST I’ve ever heard of such a claim, you’ll understand I withhold any particular faith in the notion.

First off, every previous account I have been exposed to claims otherwise… and puts the amount of available material at 3 to 4 bombs, one of which was used at Trinity.
Second, I do grasp enough of the techniques to comprehend that a mass amount itself with mid-40s tech is unlikely. The techniques used were radically new, developed solely for the purpose of producing this weapon, and had no purpose at that point outside the production of the weapon — never before had anyone tried to isolate chemical isotopes from one another, esp. not in any quantity.
Thirdly, there is the canister, the existence of which only makes sense if the stuff is in short supply — there was a large concrete reinforced cannister built in the midwest, and shipped out there to Trinity. Purpose? In case the explosion was a “mostly” dud — i.e., if the chemical explosives went off, but the nuclear reaction did not take hold — the bomb was dropped into this cannister, the purpose of which was to help retain the material together as much as possible and make the reconstruction easier. This thing was huge (it may have been the largest single object ever transported by rail — certainly it was at the time), preposterously heavy, and makes no sense at all if there was enough material available to make a dozen or more.

b) Murdoch is not above publishing/distributing something which is clearly crap but which he knows people will buy. Look at Fox and “American Idol”. One need not presume liberal bias to still presume this thing has no merit in the eyes of anyone with a clue.

If the civilians didn’t want to be bombed all they needed to do was surrender.

That goes for Germany as well as Japan.

BTW precision bombing in WW2: the CEP on average was 3 miles.

What kinds of targets are amenable to destruction by bombs given a CEP of 3 miles?

Cities.

Or as one wag put it: One bomb - not enough. Two bombs - too many.

Civilians are not necessarily noncombatant, especially in a case of total war where the entire capacity of a nation is mobilized, and especially where Bushido is the national ideology. Of course there are innocents in war, but it is simply rhetorical sleight of hand to equate civilians to noncombatants. Sometimes civilians are noncombatants, and sometimes they are citizens.

Traditionally civilians were exempted for slaughter not because they were somehow innocent of their rulers’ decisions to pursue their own little squabbles, but because they were too valuable as the means of production to be killing wantonly. Civilians and their cities were often the spoils of war and killing them off was stupid in the way that killing rustled cattle is stupid. You get hints of this thinking as far back as Sun Zi, when he advises commanders to attempt to turn rather than annihilate enemy soldiers - soldiers! - because of their obvious value.

In tgibbs world it’s never important or relevant who starts things or who is morally superior because he belongs to the Blame America Club & the primary objective is to paint as bad a portrait of America as possible. For the BAC any defense of America is “lame.” Tgibbs will prate with an empty head about the ethical ascendancy of the Nazis, the Nazis mind you, over the Allies in WW2 & not be able to comprehend the absurdity of such prattle. There was never a war more clear-cut in its moral imperatives but such realities do not encroach upon tgibbs’s fantasy-history. Tgibbs, who seeks(but ludicrously fails) to project an aura of intellectualism, doesn’t even know how to use double quotes. When I’m not laughing I want to retch.

This is true, but I don’t see the relevance. We weren’t talking about “indiscriminate bombing,” we were talking about fire and nuclear bombing of cities that produces massive civilian casualties. In any case, being morally superior to Nazi Germany isn’t much of an accomplishment, so “the Nazi’s started it” is a pretty lame excuse. Moreover, the Nazis never achieved the massive civilian casualties of the Allied firebombings of Germany (about 40,000 vs. 400,000).

BWAAAAAAAAhahahahahahahahahaaa….

Kennedy f’ed up and got his boat blown out from under him, then painted himself as a couragious man instead of the semi-comptetent he was.

Carter was… ooooh… a bonehead on a submarine. Yeah, there’s a man on the front lines of freedom…

And Kerry, well, 250-odd real soldiers who served with him don’t seem to think too much of his service activities.

Needless to say, I’m not overly impressed with your citations about the illustrious military service of “recent” liberals…

If you want to cite a well-known liberal for his military service, you pretty much have to go for John McCain.

I’m not going to really go into this tinfoil BS too much, but I’ll address this one point:

In case you didn’t know it (I’m sure you didn’t) the germ theory of disease was just being seriously proposed at the time this so-called “biowarfare” was occurring, and no one took it really seriously for another 20-odd years. Kinda hard to promote the dissemination of germs you don’t believe in the existence of.

Well, now, nothing like a bit of revisionsism to make things all spiffy in the anti-american front, eh, what?

Here’s the history of indiscriminate bombing:

1) Germany bombs the UK in the “Battle of Britain” primary target: military airfields

2) UK nearly collapses attempting to maintain its air capability under the constant German bombardment.

3) a single UK bomber run inadvertently drops its load(s) on a German city.

4) Hitler, outraged, orders all subsequent bombing to be directed at civilian targets in London.

5) Britain is saved, as, although the death toll in London is severe, it allows the UK’s air arm to repair the runways and redevelop as needed

In other words, the indiscriminate bombing was started by Hitler in retaliation for an accidental bombing in Germany… not the Allies.

Japan likely would have followed suit, except that they didn’t really have any place within range that was worth the trouble.

This is why I believe we need to make it clear that “We will presume that NoKo and Iran are to be held jointly responsible if there is any nuke used on US/Coalition soil (let the appeasers of Europe worry about themselves), and that if such happens they can expect to be brought out of power, and summarily bereft of life, in very short order, with no further questions asked or defenses allowed. In case you doubt our intent, consider Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Excerpts from the Frank article:

The intercepts of Japanese Imperial Army and Navy messages disclosed without exception that Japan’s armed forces were determined to fight a final Armageddon battle in the homeland against an Allied invasion. The Japanese called this strategy Ketsu Go (Operation Decisive). It was founded on the premise that American morale was brittle and could be shattered by heavy losses in the initial invasion.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry dispatched a message to the United States that day stating that Japan would accept the Potsdam Declaration, “with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.” This was not, as critics later asserted, merely a humble request that the emperor retain a modest figurehead role. As Japanese historians writing decades after the war emphasized, the demand that there be no compromise of the “prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler” as a precondition for the surrender was a demand that the United States grant the emperor veto power over occupation reforms and continue the rule of the old order in Japan. Fortunately, Japan specialists in the State Department immediately realized the actual purpose of this language and briefed Secretary of State James Byrnes, who insisted properly that this maneuver must be defeated.

Below is an excerpt on the cost, in regards to civilian casualties, of unnecessarily prolonging the war. If civilian casualties is what someone is really upset over then Truman’s decision was more humane than any of the ‘alternatives.’

This brings us to another aspect of history that now very belatedly has entered the controversy. Several American historians led by Robert Newman have insisted vigorously that any assessment of the end of the Pacific war must include the horrifying consequences of each continued day of the war for the Asian populations trapped within Japan’s conquests. Newman calculates that between a quarter million and 400,000 Asians, overwhelmingly noncombatants, were dying each month the war continued. Newman et al. challenge whether an assessment of Truman’s decision can highlight only the deaths of noncombatant civilians in the aggressor nation while ignoring much larger death tolls among noncombatant civilians in the victim nations.

Here Frank treats the notion of a Japan desperately seeking to surrender even more succinctly:

The Japanese did not see their situation as catastrophically hopeless. They were not seeking to surrender, but pursuing a negotiated end to the war that preserved the old order in Japan, not just a figurehead emperor.

Ryogam, get Frank’s book. His style is a little dry & technical for my taste but since you are very interested in the subject you would probably be able to slog through it with no problem. The article, which neo-neocon linked to in her first post on the subject, is enough for me.

Regarding your absurd claim that the U.S. had “only two bombs” - which you confirmed via the infallible google:

Perhaps accurate information would merely upset you and your theories, but Harper Collins has just published a book with actual research on this topic (not simply googling the internet for rumors!) by a real journalist. Stephen Walker’s “Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima” claims that the U.S. had several dozen bombs in readiness at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Harper Collins, I would remind you, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and so hardly can be suspected of “liberal propaganda.”

This book is getting plenty of exposure, but the only serious review I found was in the London Times (another Murdoch publication, so you know it can be trusted).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-1709951_2,00.html

The following is from that review:

Stephen Walker’s Shockwave comes as something of a letdown. Walker is primarily a television producer and it shows. The book is a mass of cinematic cuts and hackish tension-building devices. It is also written — or, rather, overwritten — in the style of a lowbrow thriller with too many adjectives, adverbs and much vulgar character analysis. Also, I think the reader can grasp that this is a big story, so we can’t really be that interested in being told that the author was “shocked, disturbed, thrilled, appalled, entranced, amazed and deeply moved”. Yeah, yeah, get on with it. And, last, this is the first non- fiction book I have encountered without a contents page or an index. What is going on here?

The reviewer’s conclusion: Read Before the Fall-Out by Diana Preston “quietly at home, read Walker on a plane.”

Since the book does not have a table of contents or index, perhaps Anonymous could save us slackers some time and cite the page number which shows “the U.S. had several dozen bombs in readiness?” Should we define “readiness” here? Is this another example of defining the word “is?”

So until you provide that information to document that multiple bombs were available in August, perhaps you would like to retract use of the phrase “absurd claim.” You might also wish to retract the slur about “real journalists.” But I suppose you think that television producers are journalists and anyone presenting opinions contradicting yours are not.

The Japanese plan was to force the Americans to invade and be part of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of U.S. and Japanese. The theory was that the U.S. didn’t have the stomach for such a slaughter and the U.S. public would force the government to negotiate a peace that left the Emperor in charge (not just a titular head) and leave the “gang of six” militarists, headed up by Togo in place along with the militarist structure that invaded China started the war with the U.S. in the first place.

It is worth remembering that a month before Hiroshima the U.S. had finished a two month long campaign in Okinawa and lost 50 thousand men, almost as many as all of Viet Nam. If the Japanese defended Okinawa that way, what on earth was in store for us in Japan itself?

The bombs shocked the emperor and convinced him of the folly of his underlings. He stepped in and directed them to surrender.

Truman dropped the bomb and it was a horrible, horrible thing, but it was the most humae thing to do in the long run. He ended the war and many hundreds of thousands of Japanese, Asian, and U.S. lives were saved.

The research that the alternative story (the Japanese wanted to surrender and the bombs were unnecessary) is incomplete and obsolete. The radical left pushed that story way back in the sixties as part of the disinformation and anti-American propaganda offensive of the Cold War on behalf of the Soviet Empire. It was false. It still is.

He also included on page 412 an August 3 MAGIC report of an intercepted FM Togo message to AM Sato made on August 2. “The second half [of the message] contains the first statement to appear in the traffic that the Japanese Army is interested in the effort to end the war with Soviet Assistance.”

Now, to me, again, this suggests an alternative to dropping the atomic bombs which could and probably should have been persued. Remember, Japan did not “Unconditionally Surrender,” as we demanded, and the Emporer was not tried and executed for war crimes, which is what I believe the Japanese feared most. This is why, I think, negotiated surrender was imperative to them, a negotiated surender that protected the Emporer. I don’t know, but I will difinately try to get the book you mentioned to see it contains any additional information.

The first thing I would suggest is the article by Richard B. Frank here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp?pg=2.

It is a long & comprehensive piece & completely destroys tgibbs’s cockeyed theories on the subject.

Frank has also written a book on the subject: Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire that is available through Amazon.

Ben said: Considering how many civilians were murdered or enslaved by both the Germans and the Japanese previous to their respective surrenders, dropping the two bombs on Japan was an act of mercy. We could have invaded and killed 10-20 times more.

To which tgibbs replied: So now “we could have done worse” is a justification. Certainly, we could have killed more noncombatants in an invasion, but probably only if we chose to intentionally target civilians. In any case, the primary point being made is that it is a false dichotomy to frame the issue as a choice between the rapid-succession bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or a conventional invasion. Other options that have been mentioned include:

Yes, I think “we could have done worse” is very good rebuttal, especially since you have been saying all along that the U.S. could have done better. By the way, the quote in bold font is mere speculation. Thanks to Truman & his fateful & totally correct decision, the U.S. did not have to invade, so we’ll never know for sure(thank God). But when the Blame America Club(BAC) speculates I notice they always speculate in the direction of what the BAC thinks would be the worse behavior. It is reveals a hatred of America when you constantly slime the U.S. & use speculation as your weapon. You would be much better off if you would try to keep your canards attuned to the facts – but I realize that would make it so much more difficult – after all, it’s so easy to sneer.

1. A “demonstration” bombing (without notice of date and time if there was really a genuine fear that the bomb designs that worked in tests would fail in practice).

4. Some kind of negotiated settlement, perhaps in combination with one of the above.

Tgibbs, I can see you now on the deck of the Titanic: Deck chairs, champagne bottles, screaming passengers & crew members would be sliding down the steeply inclining deck past you toward the cold Atlantic but you would be hanging onto a stanchion, musing, “If only we had turned starboard.” All the above ‘numbered’ points are also speculation & impractical second-guessing.

And I see not even a hint of a ‘there are no innocents’ sentiment in Ben’s comment. It’s more like an ‘innocents were saved’ statement. Also, please don’t use double quotes unless you are quoting actual words from a comment. It gives your slurs too much of an air of legitimacy – another shady tactic of which you are fond.

Yes, one can rationalize that perhaps none of these would have worked. Perhaps not, but the point is that none of them were tried. Nobody seemed to worry too much that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would fail to compel unconditional surrender, and that we would have killed all of those noncombatants for nothing. Even if lesser measures failed, it would not necessarily have necessitated a conventional invasion, because the option of nuclear attack would have remained (even if we had to build another bomb or two).

In regards to the font above in bold: Actually at least 3 of our highest leaders agonized about using the bomb but the BAC never passes up a chance to smear American leaders. The fact is that the bombs did compel surrender & that is what really chaps you, isn’t it?

Note that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the people responsible for “civilians [who] were murdered or enslaved by both the Germans and the Japanese.” They couldn’t even be said to be complicit in the minor sense of having elected their leaders. It is sad to see US apologists resorting to this kind of “there are no innocents” reasoning, which is one of the favorite rationalizations of terrorist murderers.

Ben never said the civilians were culpable – you’re putting words into his mouth, but I’m not surprised – you constantly ‘see’ things that are not there.

I realize the toil involved in constructing a well-researched comment such as yours but documents in the public domain after 1995 make Gar Alperovitz’s book obsolete. Also, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey did not know of these documents when they issued their report just after the war. If I were you I would not delete your work from wherever it is saved but instead revise it to reflect the latest developments.

1. Actually, I’m not making the argument that civilians can’t be bombed, but that they should not be the focus of a bombing.

Good, because the civilians were not the focus of the bombing; the military components within & at the edges of the two cities were the focus of the bombing.

2. I’m not the only one to suggest that Hiroshima was a questionable target. Either way, though, the rule says “objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable.” This was not the case as the historians in the link above remind us that “the Enola Gay bombardier’s instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.”

See my answer below #3. Keep in mind that the targets, Hiroshima, Nagasaki & the military components contained within them, were legitimate military objectives & I assume identifiable in the sense that the U.S. had intelligence that they were there.

3. You’re right. Negligence wasn’t the cause. It was an intentional targeting of civlians. Deaths caused by the bombing itself (as opposed to residual effects) dropped off dramatically after about 3.5 miles. Sighting the factories at the edge of the city could have saved numerous lives.

You say the factories were located at the “edge of the city.” I assume you’ve researched that fact & so will not dispute its veracity. I ask you only to imagine that you are the U.S. commander at the time. You have a number of targets on the “edge of the city” – how best to damage them all? Terry, do you see where I’m headed? Yes, drop the bomb, of which you have a limited supply, right smack in the middle.

“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.”

But Truman did not know that the Japanese were going to surrender soon – he knew otherwise. The trouble with the “official government report” put out just after the war ended that you quote in bold font is that the issuers of that report did not have access to the recently released information I steered you to in my last comment. But Truman did have access to it & made his decision accordingly. It seems pointless to keep clinging to the belief that the Japanese were desperate to surrender or about to surrender when we now know for certain that before the bombs were dropped they were nowhere near to surrendering. Even the “official government report” postulates perhaps several more months of fighting – from August until December. What about all the Japanese & Americans & others who would presumably die within that hypothetical time frame? But it’s really a moot question since we now know the report issuers did not know the full story.

I think it was admirable that Truman, Eisenhower, MacArthur & probably many other American leaders agonized about the bomb. It is truly a testament to their moral fiber & to yours, too. But Truman was the only one of the three who knew of the intercepted Japanese communications. It was withheld from mere generals, so they can be excused for their ignorance.

While I admit that the report goes on to defend the use of the atomic weapons because their demoralizing effect on the populace, I would say again that that’s basically terrorism.

Any demoralizing effect was directed toward the Emperor & the Japanese High Command, not the general Japanese populace – who had absolutely no say in the conduct of the war. The Japanese populace of that time were not like Western populaces of this time – who have a voice in their government & can recall their leaders. You are entitled to your opinion but the facts are that it was a time of declared war & the operation was directed by a legitimate government using military combatants to destroy military targets. In my mind that’s very far from any definition of terrorism that I could accept. I cannot bring myself, no matter how I study the facts, to equate it with the London atrocities or 9/11.

Terry, as an aside let me add that I too am saddened on those occasions when my country deviates from the high moral values our history bestows on us. Our consolation should be that those instances are comparatively few & that we have democratic mechanisms with which to orchestrate corrections & attempt to make amends.

The following comes from “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb” by Gar Alperovitz, a Random House work, published in 1995. His work is based on government documents, created at the time the decision to use the bombs was being made, only relatively recently declassified and therefore not available to previous historians. It is impossible to summarize the complete 800+ pages but three points are made:

Japan was approaching American representatives in the Spring of 1945 regarding surrender. The main obstacle was U.S. insistence on Unconditional Surrender, which the Japanese interpreted as meaning the overthrow and possible execution of the Emperor. Japan wanted assurances that US would not result in the Emperor’s death. The U.S. refused to make this assurance, prolonging the war. (Alperovitz, 409).

There was wide belief among U.S. war planners at the time, as seen in documents now available, that the Japanese would surrender, without invasion and without use of Atomic weapons, as soon as Russia declared war against Japan. This declaration was expected in early August. On August 6, the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On August 8, 1945, Russia declared war on Japan. On August 9, Nagasaki was bombed. A meeting of the Japanese war planners was called after the bombing of Hiroshima but that meeting did not occur till August 9, at which time the notice of Russian intent and the Nagasaki bombing was taken. Some of the leaders in the Japanese military still wanted to fight due to the Unconditional Surrender terms. The Emperor made the final decision to surrender, but even then the terms Japan agreed to on August 10 differed from the terms offered by the U.S. in that they retained the sovereign nature of the Emperor. (Alperovitz, 417).

Finally, the idea that an invasion of Japan would be necessary to secure Japan’s surrender, and that such an invasion would cost hundreds of thousands of American lives was also not seriously believed by most American war planners. No invasion was planned for prior to November of 1945. Invasion would not have been possible prior to this date. This was long after the Russian declaration of war on Japan was expected, a declaration most U.S. military planners assumed would force Japan to surrender. No such invasion was expected by U.S. planners to be necessary. (Alperovitz, 363)

Now, sixty years later, we are engaged in Monday Morning Quarterbacking, most of us only slightly better educated about the subject beyond what we learned in high school. But what about Monday Morning Quarterbacking of a little better quality? The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, in 1946, concluded that “certainly prior to 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.” (Alperovitz, 645)

Finally, this little essay took way too long to write, so I saved it and will probably post it anywhere this stuff is discussed from now on.

So now “we could have done worse” is a justification. Certainly, we could have killed more noncombatants in an invasion, but probably only if we chose to intentionally target civilians. In any case, the primary point being made is that it is a false dichotomy to frame the issue as a choice between the rapid-succession bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or a conventional invasion. Other options that have been mentioned include:

1) A “demonstration” bombing (without notice of date and time if there was really a genuine fear that the bomb designs that worked in tests would fail in practice).

2) Bombing directed toward a more exclusively military target, or at least the outskirts, rather than the center of Hiroshima.

3) A longer interval between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to give the emperor and military leadership more time to absorb the implications.

4) Some kind of negotiated settlement, perhaps in combination with one of the above.

Yes, one can rationalize that perhaps none of these would have worked. Perhaps not, but the point is that none of them were tried. Nobody seemed to worry too much that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would fail to compel unconditional surrender, and that we would have killed all of those noncombatants for nothing. Even if lesser measures failed, it would not necessarily have necessitated a conventional invasion, because the option of nuclear attack would have remained (even if we had to build another bomb or two).

Note that the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the people responsible for “civilians [who] were murdered or enslaved by both the Germans and the Japanese.” They couldn’t even be said to be complicit in the minor sense of having elected their leaders. It is sad to see US apologists resorting to this kind of “there are no innocents” reasoning, which is one of the favorite rationalizations of terrorist murderers.

So they were — and yet, as late as 1939-1945 that’s exactly what the “civilized nations of the world”, on both sides, engaged in. Documents, rules, theories, and even principles went out the window in what became a global fight to the finish. There’s room for dispute, certainly, over many of the decisions made at that time — but the grounds for settling such disputes becomes one of effectiveness, not whether or not it adhered to some abstract and absolute “rule”. Why? Because the first rule of all is survival, without which all other rules are moot.

In that sense, then, the question becomes whether or not the bombs accomplished a purpose which couldn’t have been accomplished otherwise, and which ultimately saved more lives than they took. That’s a hard question to answer, especially in the heat of the war — Eisenhower and others, apparently, felt they did not; Truman and others felt they did. But what’s obtuse, morally and otherwise, is for armchair moralists, 60 years after the fact, to bask in self-righteous condemnation once all the outcomes are clear.

Did Eisenhower think the Germans were the good guys? Did MacArthur love the Japanese? How did Roosevelt feel?

And what about this commie: “By chaining up German prisoners in response to similar action by the Germans, we descend, at any rate in the eyes of the ordinary observer, to the level of our enemies. It is unquestionable when one thinks of the history of the past ten years that there is a deep moral difference between democracy and Fascism, but if we go on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth we simply cause that difference to be forgotten.”

You’re an idiot.

I hope you’ll excuse my slipping into snark. I’m actually finding the discussion quite fascinating. I hadn’t heard about recent discover of intercepted transmissions, but, I must admit, I don’t know how much that would change my views here. As someone who’s served in both the Navy and the Army, I’m a stickler for the ideals found in the Rules of Warfare and find myself saddened and disappointed when I find failures on the part of my country to live up to those laws and its highest ideals, both past and present.

However, I don’t think the possibility of some sort of demonstration was explored to its fullest extent. An unannounced explosion, for example, over Tokyo Bay would certainly have gotten their attention. Tens of thousands of Japanese, including those in the military high command, would have witnessed it. Even if they didn’t see the initial flash, the mushroom fireball lasted a long time, ensuring that most residents would have witnessed the awesome firepower. By all accounts, the initial test of the bomb at Los Alamos left a staggering impression on military and scientific observers - so the military knew full well the power of such an demo. An unannounced drop, followed by leaflet propaganda, would have avoided the pitfalls of a bomb that didn’t work, or a Japanese intercept, or that the Japanese would think it a fake.

Would that kind of unannounced demonstration off of Tokyo Bay have been enough to convince the Japanese to surrender? Maybe, or maybe not. The point is that it was never tried.

Had the Japanese not surrendered after the unannounced demo, the US still had another bomb on site at Tinian (and several more in production). Thus, we retained the option to then proceed with the destruction of a city.

And even if you think dropping the bomb on Hiroshima was absolutely unavoidable, I think that the time interval before the second bomb was dropped was not nearly sufficient. With its transportation and communication infrastructure in tatters, the Japanese really needed more than 3 days for the reports from far away Hiroshima to really sink in over in Tokyo. Obliterating Nagasaki 3 days later was premature overkill. Would it really have cost us that much to have waited a week after the first drop?

Does all of this mean the US is evil? No. Does it mean that the Japanese are not culpable in their own destruction? No. But lets face it - with the Japanese military utterly defeated, we had some options available to us to possibly avoid nuking two cities. Try as the apologists might, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not our finest hour - and will always remain moral blemishes on the US.

2. I’m not the only one to suggest that Hiroshima was a questionable target. Either way, though, the rule says “objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable.” This was not the case as the historians in the link above remind us that “the Enola Gay bombardier’s instructions were to target the bomb on the center of this civilian city.”

3. You’re right. Negligence wasn’t the cause. It was an intentional targeting of civlians. Deaths caused by the bombing itself (as opposed to residual effects) dropped off dramatically after about 3.5 miles. Sighting the factories at the edge of the city could have saved numerous lives.

Aside from all this, let’s remember that, if we want to, as Larry put it, “look at the conditions that prevailed at the time decisions were made,” we have to admit that there were many who argued against the weapons being used at the time.

Pinkos like Dwight D. Eisenhower: “I voiced my 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.’”

MacArthur questioned the bombs’ use as well as many others.

Now, as you’re obviously a “strict constructionist” of the rules of law, you probably won’t get this, but the point of all three sections of this charter is the idea that soldiers should minimize the killing of noncombatants. When you take into account that we knew the Japanese were going to surrender soon–it would have been by November 1945, by an official government report finished less than a year later. “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.”

While I admit that the report goes on to defend the use of the atomic weapons because their demoralizing effect on the populace, I would say again that that’s basically terrorism.

Terry, as has been commented on before, both here & on other posts dealing with this subject, if the U.S. had not dropped the bombs, in all likelihood the number of casualties would have been much more. We now know, through the recent releasing of documents having to do with the interception of coded Japanese communications near the end of WW2, that the Japanese strategy was to cause so many casualties that the U.S. would be forced to treat for terms favorable to the Japanese imperial clique. Japanese High Command was willing to incur any amount of Japanese military & civilian casualties to achieve this objective, with talk of fighting an invasion to the last man, woman & child. This is almost unbelievable to Western sensibilities but is true. Not only was Truman’s decision humane in the sense of saving the lives of American soldiers, he also probably saved many Japanese soldiers & civilians from certain death. Therefore, let your conscience be assuaged.

“1) The intentional bombing of civilian populations is illegal;

“2) Objectives aimed at from the air must be legitimate military objectives and must be identifiable;

“3) Any attack on legitimate military objectives must be carried out in such a way that civilian populations in the neighbourhood are not bombed through negligence…”

Terry, I don’t believe the League of Nations meant by the wording of #1 that any bombing in which civilians could conceivably die was unjustifiable. Since warfare is impossible to wage without incurring civilian casualties, such a meaning would be absurd. If such a meaning as you imply were the case then all an enemy force would have to do would be to nestle itself amongst civilians & it would be safe – for instance as do the Palestinian terror groups(and sadly for the Palestinian civilians, sometimes to no avail). It would be impossible to comply with such a rule as your interpretation presents. Sometimes our emotions lead us into absurd places.

The atomic bombing of Japan met the conditions of #2 since both cities were of military importance, having factories, military installations & being centers of military transport.

As for #3, it was not through “negligence,” in the sense of the U.S. command being lax in its targeting, that the civilians in those cities died – it was simply one of the unfortunate results of the bombing.

Well, if you followed the link and looked around at all, then you would have seen that, as early as 1899 the civilized nations of the world were opposed to the wholesale slaughter of civilians, so it the idea that these were simply the “vaporous hopes” of the ill-fated League of Nations is a rather obtuse argument.

You bring up a good point, though, in saying that principles should be the basis of any moral argument. (I just returned from a year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan, so I’m obviously not a pacifist. I’m also a Catholic and I do believe in the “Just War” theory. Your reductionist argument doesn’t carry water with me.) I’m not arguing that the war itself was immoral. I’m only saying that our principles should have risen above our military needs at the time. Principles are called principles because they come first, after all.

The simple truth is that the United States killed a vast number of noncombatants in order to influence a government’s policies. Is that one of the “ideals” for which we fought? It hardly seems worth fighting for such a utilitarian and ad hoc idealism.

This is not a game, and there are no “goalposts”. The standard is simply right or wrong, period. But how do you judge that, particularly in the context of total war? I mean, if we’re going to be moral absolutists, then why not just say that killing itself is wrong, and so war itself is wrong, any nation that participates in war is immoral, and retire in pristine moral rectitude to a monastery? If that seems a bit extreme or a bit absurd, or both, then we have to look at the conditions that prevailed at the time decisions were made, conditions that really had changed significantly from the vaporous hopes behind the obsolete League of Nations. And we also have to look at the larger issues that stood behind the conflict in the first place. It’s not ̶