The Chinese still harbor anger about WW II. They would have certainly encouraged the bombing of Japan with A-bombs until Japan surrendered no matter how many Japanese were killed. After the Doolittle raid on Japan, the Japanese went on rampage trying to capture the Doolittle raiders. During this rampage. over 250,000 Chinese were killed.

We used to bomb to save American lives. The other options would have been more horrible.

To repeat: The Versailles Treaty amounted to too little punishment for what the Germans had done in 1914-1918. All the top decision makers in WW II were veterans of or had been adults during WW I, and the horrid social and emotional results.
Then the Germans did it AGAIN. But worse. They were not going to be let up easy. And the Japanese got the benefit of the German lesson.
It’s hard to imagine how angry people were at the perps of the Second World War. The bastards did it AGAIN! We have to suffer this whole thing AGAIN! Because they didn’t learn their lesson last time, but God and Satan and everything else, we will see they do this time.

As has been said before, the bomb was the least bad thing that, given the preceding paragraph, Japan was going to suffer.

fall guys to take the blame for their masters,

There were a couple of key government or military leaders that killed themselves first. As did several other Japanese leaders once failure became evident in several military operations. Hara kiri is also something they understand and approved of.

Germany didn’t have that custom. So you had prisoners that tried to suicide after they realized that they couldn’t defend themselves with “following orders” anymore. And that only occured because the suicide watch was bribed and subverted.

The Japanese Navy was beaten, but the Army was not yet so. The island fights had always been intended as front line defenses. Most of the Japanese Army was still intact.

There were several more divisions available to the Japanese than was initially believed. It was also discovered, late in the planning for the invasion, that Japan held substantial air assets in deep reserve for the expected invasion.

One of the primary motivations for the use of the bombs was the real possibility that the invading fleet would take so much damage while closing on Japan from continual and sustained air attack, as well as possible submarine torpedo or suicide attacks that there would be insufficient resources remaining to maintain a viable force on Japanese soil.

There was a real fear that we’d lose the entire invasion fleet from combined damages while approaching, attempting to land forces and egressing the area covered by Japanese land based air craft.

I dont remember many details and not sure of the details I seem to recall from this paper. It was a couple years ago that I read it. Unfortunately, the paper is no longer available at the link I had saved. So, take it or leave it.

“That is the way it should be. How long does the new generation pay for the actions of the previous?” -Ymar

Well, I half agree with you, Ymar. It’s not about extracting a pound of flesh for justice sake (there’s already been plenty collected). It’s about them understanding it was their fault and not ours that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got smoked. People that don’t understand that are a problem, as we’ve been discussing all through this thread, right? If the evil isn’t placed properly, it gets placed improperly, no?

Generally, I think we did a good job not overreacting on the Japanese, the results speak for themselves. But we could also have taken a lesson from Japanese culture, and found a few (more, more important) fall guys to take the blame for their masters, while still leaving the Emperor in place. Symbolic offerings to the altar of peace and truth. They would understand.

if anyone wants to dig up their grandfathers and uncles that fought in WWII and have them hash it out with Hirohito, will have my blessing with them.

“Propaganda Redux” by Ion Mihai Pacepa in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, August 7, 2007[free!]

An excerpt:

… Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. …

The communist effort to generate hatred for the American president began soon after President Truman set up NATO and propelled the three Western occupation forces to unite their zones to form a new West German nation. We were tasked to take advantage of the reawakened patriotic feelings stirring in the European countries that had been subjugated by the Nazis, in order to shift their hatred for Hitler over into hatred for Truman–the leader of the new “occupation power.” Western Europe was still grateful to the U.S. for having restored its freedom, but it had strong leftist movements that we secretly financed. They were like putty in our hands.

The European leftists, like any totalitarians, needed a tangible enemy, and we gave them one. In no time they began beating their drums decrying President Truman as the “butcher of Hiroshima.”

emphasis added.

snowonpine said:

Leftist academics, particularly Gar Alperovitz at the University of Maryland, have made a decades-long cottage industry of producing books and articles arguing that the dropping of these bombs was unnecessary

And Alperovitz did not make it up. He was just following the party line.

What is true for you is not true for the rest of everyone else.

The war has been over. The justifications created to explain why it isn’t is just that. You have not looked for an apology. You went back into history and attempted to label the time of occupation was being corrupted somehow.

That is the way it should be. How long does the new generation pay for the actions of the previous? Should the Bush twins sign up because their father is a “war criminal”? Should white folks pay restitution to blacks for the slavery of their ancestors?

Clan warfare is based upon the premise that the other family needs to pay for what they did to your great great great whatever uncle. Clan warfare didn’t get humanity anywhere.