The "Bomb"

It's evident that you are too entrenched in your position to accept any form of empirical evidence whatsoever.

It is enlightening that when I gave you the source you were craving, you ignored the information that you had accused me of lying about. That is hypocritical and intellectually dishonest.

summary:

It is my opinion , backed by strong empirical and historical evidence, that the dropping ot the atomic bombs on Japan, while the resulting casualties were regrettable, saved millions of lives.

I further believe that it saved far more Japanese than American lives.

You have presented no empirical evidence to the contrary, just opinion and speculation.

Bottom line:

Another unsourced quote...just for you...and I'm done.

This discussion has been going on for decades and we're not going to decide it here.

It is just unfortunate that you considered it necessary to resort to personal attacks , when faced with irrefutable facts, while presenting nothing but anecdotal evidence, speculation, and opinion.

Have a good day , John. It's been...enlightening.:thumbs:

 

It's evident that you don't even understand what I've been saying.

I did not accuse you of lying. Once again, I defy you or anyone else to show where I accused you of being a liar. Show the exact quote, with the post number, and I'll apologize sincerely. Otherwise, everyone on the thread will know you to be a false accuser of the brethren.

Apparently to even question what you say at all is to accuse you of lying, near as I can figure.

You never said that this was what you were trying to prove. If you had said this at the start, it would have greatly helped the discussion. The actual view of the Allies in WW2 who made the decision was that it would save up to 500,000 American lives, not that it would save any Japanese lives (which they did not care about).

And there you have it.

I dare you, I defy you, to actually show where I've attacked you personally. If you can show me where I have attacked you personally, I will apologize. I will not apologize for merely asking for your source. That would be ridiculous.

As for me not presenting facts, no more than you did. You had nothing but hearsay and a quote from Wiki--which the Japanese Wiki article disagrees with as I pointed out. So actually I gave just as many facts as you did. So your Wiki facts are not "indisputable" as you say.

But I did give you the considered first hand view of someone who actually lives in Japan and knows the Japanese people, language and culture intimately. But rather than trying to learn more about Japan, you ignored my contributions--replying on this thread to almost nothing I tried to teach you about Japan and her culture. I believe I answered you thoroughly about Japanese culture in relation to the historical event, something you mentioned in your "baloney" statement to C4K. But you had no answer for any of my cultural information. And there the thread stands.

Yes it has. Now I know what you are made of.

 

I always wanted to know the Japanese perspective on the matter. However, genocide is a non applicable term simply because the bombs were not meant to wipe out the Japanese people as a race but to re-inforce the idea that we had technology that is more devestating than any in their arsenal and their current battle strategy "war by attrition" could not work. However, was it unnessisary? I rather doubt it. I agree with the sentiment that more lives would have been lost. I am trouble that we used the bomb indiscriminately on specifically civilian targets rather than a military one. Though in WWII we did not have the technology to be specific with our bombs. We couldn't just hit a war factory with out civilian casualties. Often carpet bombing was required which involved sections of cities with both factory and people's homes.

On the other hand see how the Japanese treated US soldiers in Batan. And how they treated the Chinese I doubt the Japanese would have been more merciful had the situation been reversed. In fact I believe they would have been far more cruel than what we dished out with those 2 bombs.

 

Years ago I transcribed some oral history tapes for the Naval Institute. One set was of the interview of a retired admiral who was on the staff of Admiral Nimitz staff that was planning the invasion of Japan's homeland islands. In the tape he said that they were estimating that over 5 million Japanese casualties if the homeland islands were invaded. They also estimated that casualties of allied troops, primarily American, would be between 2 and 3 million if that invasion took place.

Surely the number of Japanese killed in the two atomic bomb drops was large, but also small compared to the millions who would have been killed if the invasion had taken place.

 

I agree with this. The Japanese military had committed so many atrocities by then that I don't doubt they would have dropped an A-bomb on New York without a second thought if they were capable of it and thought it would gain them anything.

 

I think the estimate of American experts on possible Japanese deaths was the best they could do at the time, but fundamentally flawed due to their misunderstanding of bushido as being something the whole populace believed in. (See my post 7 on p. 67.) I seriously doubt the figures of 5 million Japanese and 2-3 million Allied troops possibly dying. My main reasons for doubting those figures are (1) Allied undisputed control of the air (absolutely essential in modern warfare) and sea, and (2) the desperate straits the Japanese had come to in the way of supplies: food, ammunition, steel, etc. An army truly marches on its stomach. I've talked to Japanese civilians who told me how little food they had by the end of the war, and a Japanese WW2 soldier who commented on how thin the armor of his tank was because Japan had so little steel.

Interesting side note: to this day, Spam, yes the meat Spam, is a delicacy in Japan and very expensive in the stores, no doubt because when the Allied troops finally landed they gave the stuff to civilians, to who it was like gold.

 

There is actually valuable lessons to learn here. Logistics is of key importance. As the United States lets its infrastructer go by the way side and we rely more heavily on other nations to provide valuable material apart from our natural resources we have serious military issues. As a nation we would have to rebuild certain things. Its a shame when I hear there are only two main distributers of steel in the US and only one company manufactures black powder. An enemy country only need hit one factory and our supplies run short.

So has bushido gone away apart from martial arts?

 

I agree. The US might have serious logistical problems if we fought with the Chinese in particular. I recently saw where many Chinese parts, pirated parts at that, were showing up in US aircraft.

In general, it died with the samurai during the Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century. However, it still influences Japan today in that the samurai were taught the Confucian classics, and then they being at the top of the Japanese caste system forced Confucian ethics on the rest of the population.

The average Japanese martial artist wouldn't know much about bushido, though the upper ranks of black belt would understand it.

 

In reality we will never know how many people would have died if the home islands had been invaded. In my post causality did not mean killed, but included both killed and wounded.

You are right about food. I worked with man who was a prisoner of war in Japan. He told me his job was to grow sweet potatoes. The Japanese ate the potatoes and he and other prisoners were given the vines to eat. By the end of the war the Japanese were eating both the vines and the potatoes. He said they were the Japanese were very short of food.

Spam seems to be sold all over the world, both under the name Span and other names. I have seen and eaten it in China. I forget what it is called there ... but it is the same Spam ... love it or hate it.

 

Have you read the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand? This is the true story of Louis Zamperini who was a prisoner of war in Japan. It is an incredible story. If you have not read it I suggest that all should read it and how his, Zamperini's, redemption came about.

 

I agree, in the end whatever figure we come up with is pure speculation.

The children suffered most. I know two who were kids during the war, and sometimes longed for even white rice to eat.

Kind of like it myself, but we never buy it in Japan. Can't afford luxuries like spam and caviar, you know. :smilewinkgrin:

 

Haven't read that one, but it sounds like a good read. I'll take a look on Amazon.

You probably know the story of DeShazer with the Doolittle raid, who was captured and spent time in a Japanese prison camp. He grew to hate the Japanese, but was saved when someone gave him a Bible and later became a missionary to Japan. He led Fuchida to Christ, the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fuchida later became an evangelist.

 

It is amazing how our God works.

 

We are on page 10

Per forum rules, this thread will be closed no sooner than 6:00 a.m. ET by one of the moderators. Thanks.

Lady Eagle :flower:

 

Such are the rules, LE!!! Such are the rules!!!

Funny how a good discussion like this one gets a 10 pager-----and then in the other forum---the Calvin threads are spread out though eternity!!!:BangHead:

Bro. David