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"That quote is meant to leave the reader with the concept that Japan would have done the same as the US had the situation been reversed." Do you think they wou

"That quote is meant to leave the reader with the concept that Japan would have done the same as the US had the situation been reversed." Do you think they would _not_ have used atomic bombs, if they had them and believed it was militarily necessary? After all, Japan was not exactly known for merciful treatment of civilian populations or opposing enemy forces during World War II. "Those are justification arguments that, given the enormity of the context and timing, should be strictly scrutinized." Strictly scrutinized by whom, and to what end? Furthermore, should an article which raises arguments against dropping the bomb be scrutinized just as strictly? If not, why not?

sandworm101 11y ago
Yes. Any new articles at this time, particularly ones brining forward new or rarely-seen evidence should be put under a magnifying glass. The use of nukes by the US against japan is a backdrop against which all US military decisions are made today.
- brighteyes 11y ago
  What you're saying is terrifying. You want history and historical debate to be completely politicized, with all authors investigated for having the correct ideological underpinnings. History and science would all grind to a halt if the first thing people would do to every article and paper is to check for political leanings.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    Not all, only where authors so openly insert modern political views into historical situations. If this were a more detached examination of the Japanese bomb program then I probably would welcome the new information. >History and science would all grind to a halt if the first thing people would do to every article and paper is to check for political leanings. Yes. Given the scope of what's available today re WWII, everything beyond primary sources should be investigated. Nothing should be taken as fact simply because it is written down. If you start accepting facts simply because they are in some online article, you are down the road to the belief that lizard people run the world. Every author's background and political goals are relevant where they inject opinion atop original research.
    - brighteyes 11y ago
      > Not all, only where authors so openly insert modern political views into historical situations. And who decides if they "so openly" do that? Apparently you think it is happening here, while to me, your perspective seems very puzzling. You appear to be looking for something so hard, you find it even when it isn't there. Where did this article inject opinion? The part you so take issue with, the closing, is a literal quote.
  - the_af 11y ago
    In what way is it terrifying to analyze the hugely controversial deployment of a terrible weapon against a civilian population, and the post-hoc justifications for this act? This is not science. This is war and recent history, which are political beasts by nature. This was the deployment of a terrifying strategic weapon, which has doubly political implications. Any piece of journalism or recent news related to this -- either justifying or decrying this horrific historical event -- must be closely scrutinized by everyone interested in the subject matter. If tomorrow a piece of news reads "secret documents have been uncovered which prove conclusively and decisively that the dropping of the atom bomb was done only to scare the Soviets and had no relation to the actual threat posed by the Japanese army, and the government and high command was aware of this, and here is a secret recording that proves it once and for all" this would also merit close scrutiny: why are they saying this now? Why near this date? Who benefits from this interpretation? Who doesn't? Is there any way this alleged recording could have been taken out of context or faked? Will the current military be similarly willing to deploy nuclear weapons against cities to impress other world powers, or have modern attitudes changed? If this doesn't merit close scrutiny, what does?
    - brighteyes 11y ago
      Of course I agree we should debate that very important topic. No objection to that. What I find worrying is that sandworm takes a quite objective piece of reporting - a news article, not an opinion piece - and begins immediately to make assumptions about the author's politics, and to find grievous fault in those politics. He or she jumps straight to attacking the author and their motives, instead of considering what they are saying. sandworm doesn't even find anything not objective in the article. His or her complaints amounts to "the author presents evidence that, while true, is clearly meant to argue such-and-such specific political point of view, and they are terrible people for promoting that agenda." The article is just an interesting piece on new evidence. Sure, it could in theory be used to argue for some political side (more than one in fact), but no one actually did that, except in sandworm's head. If we lose the ability to have objective discussions about history, facts, and science, we lose as a society.
- walshemj 11y ago
  All decisions - you know that the pacific was a side show with finishing of the Nazis as the primary aim.
  - hga 11y ago
    For the U.K. and the Soviets, perhaps, but for the US it was anything but a sideshow. Not our main effort, but very much a major effort, we didn't e.g. build the Fast Carrier Task Force to invade Festung Europa.
    - walshemj 11y ago
      In terms of where the USA put most of its effort it was. Not that FDR didn't have his own ideas about the USA and its place in the world.
hga 11y ago
Japan was not exactly known for merciful treatment of civilian populations One of the many reasons to end the war ASAP was that by the end, the Greater East Asian Co-"Prosperity" Sphere was killing off its enslaved populations at an estimated rate of 250K per month. or opposing enemy forces during World War II General knowledge of this, e.g. the formal release of information to the American public about the Bataan Death March on January 1944, plus their widespread killing of POWs before capture was another factor in our dropping the bombs. I don't think the issue of their brutality towards non-Japanese is open to question. Heck, one of the heroes of the Rape of Nanking was a Nazi party member....
- ptaipale 11y ago
  > one of the heroes of the Rape of Nanking was a Nazi party member.... Now that you mention it, the story of John Rabe is fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe Of course, it should be noted that not all Nazi party members committed atrocities; many were simply opportunists who joined a political party of power.
protomyth 11y ago
"Do you think they would _not_ have used atomic bombs" Given the Japanese did bomb the USA during WWII[1], I cannot see someone justifying an argument where they got the bomb and didn't try. 1) http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375820191/beware-of-japanese-balloon-bombs http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/3758...
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Well, a bomb still needs a delivery system, and "strap it to a balloon and set it adrift in the general direction of the continent you want to hit" might have some (miniscule) utility for something you can make a lot of, but with a nuclear weapon you probably want targeting that's a bit more specific. That's not to say that Japan wouldn't have used nukes if it could have gotten them, just that the balloon bombing of the US mainland [0] really illustrates little about their willingness, capability, or likely approach to do so. [0] Well, okay, "North America" might be more accurate.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    The Japanese could certainly have delivered the bomb to US targets. They had aircraft carrying submarines. Near the end of the war an operation to attack on the Panama Canal was in the works before the subs were recalled to the home islands in order to make kamikaze attacks on American warships.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > The Japanese could certainly have delivered the bomb to US targets. They had aircraft carrying submarines. Which carried small planes; the largest of which had a loaded weight smaller than any of the early nuclear weapons. The only way those were going to deliver nuclear bombs anywhere was to use the submarine itself as a suicide delivery system, rather than carrying them on the planes.
      - tsotha 11y ago

sandworm101 11y ago

Yes. Any new articles at this time, particularly ones brining forward new or rarely-seen evidence should be put under a magnifying glass. The use of nukes by the US against japan is a backdrop against which all US military decisions are made today.

brighteyes 11y ago
What you're saying is terrifying. You want history and historical debate to be completely politicized, with all authors investigated for having the correct ideological underpinnings. History and science would all grind to a halt if the first thing people would do to every article and paper is to check for political leanings.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  Not all, only where authors so openly insert modern political views into historical situations. If this were a more detached examination of the Japanese bomb program then I probably would welcome the new information. >History and science would all grind to a halt if the first thing people would do to every article and paper is to check for political leanings. Yes. Given the scope of what's available today re WWII, everything beyond primary sources should be investigated. Nothing should be taken as fact simply because it is written down. If you start accepting facts simply because they are in some online article, you are down the road to the belief that lizard people run the world. Every author's background and political goals are relevant where they inject opinion atop original research.
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    > Not all, only where authors so openly insert modern political views into historical situations. And who decides if they "so openly" do that? Apparently you think it is happening here, while to me, your perspective seems very puzzling. You appear to be looking for something so hard, you find it even when it isn't there. Where did this article inject opinion? The part you so take issue with, the closing, is a literal quote.
- the_af 11y ago
  In what way is it terrifying to analyze the hugely controversial deployment of a terrible weapon against a civilian population, and the post-hoc justifications for this act? This is not science. This is war and recent history, which are political beasts by nature. This was the deployment of a terrifying strategic weapon, which has doubly political implications. Any piece of journalism or recent news related to this -- either justifying or decrying this horrific historical event -- must be closely scrutinized by everyone interested in the subject matter. If tomorrow a piece of news reads "secret documents have been uncovered which prove conclusively and decisively that the dropping of the atom bomb was done only to scare the Soviets and had no relation to the actual threat posed by the Japanese army, and the government and high command was aware of this, and here is a secret recording that proves it once and for all" this would also merit close scrutiny: why are they saying this now? Why near this date? Who benefits from this interpretation? Who doesn't? Is there any way this alleged recording could have been taken out of context or faked? Will the current military be similarly willing to deploy nuclear weapons against cities to impress other world powers, or have modern attitudes changed? If this doesn't merit close scrutiny, what does?
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    Of course I agree we should debate that very important topic. No objection to that. What I find worrying is that sandworm takes a quite objective piece of reporting - a news article, not an opinion piece - and begins immediately to make assumptions about the author's politics, and to find grievous fault in those politics. He or she jumps straight to attacking the author and their motives, instead of considering what they are saying. sandworm doesn't even find anything not objective in the article. His or her complaints amounts to "the author presents evidence that, while true, is clearly meant to argue such-and-such specific political point of view, and they are terrible people for promoting that agenda." The article is just an interesting piece on new evidence. Sure, it could in theory be used to argue for some political side (more than one in fact), but no one actually did that, except in sandworm's head. If we lose the ability to have objective discussions about history, facts, and science, we lose as a society.
walshemj 11y ago
All decisions - you know that the pacific was a side show with finishing of the Nazis as the primary aim.
- hga 11y ago
  For the U.K. and the Soviets, perhaps, but for the US it was anything but a sideshow. Not our main effort, but very much a major effort, we didn't e.g. build the Fast Carrier Task Force to invade Festung Europa.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    In terms of where the USA put most of its effort it was. Not that FDR didn't have his own ideas about the USA and its place in the world.

hga 11y ago

Japan was not exactly known for merciful treatment of civilian populations One of the many reasons to end the war ASAP was that by the end, the Greater East Asian Co-"Prosperity" Sphere was killing off its enslaved populations at an estimated rate of 250K per month. or opposing enemy forces during World War II General knowledge of this, e.g. the formal release of information to the American public about the Bataan Death March on January 1944, plus their widespread killing of POWs before capture was another factor in our dropping the bombs. I don't think the issue of their brutality towards non-Japanese is open to question. Heck, one of the heroes of the Rape of Nanking was a Nazi party member....

ptaipale 11y ago
> one of the heroes of the Rape of Nanking was a Nazi party member.... Now that you mention it, the story of John Rabe is fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe Of course, it should be noted that not all Nazi party members committed atrocities; many were simply opportunists who joined a political party of power.

protomyth 11y ago

"Do you think they would _not_ have used atomic bombs" Given the Japanese did bomb the USA during WWII[1], I cannot see someone justifying an argument where they got the bomb and didn't try. 1) http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375820191/beware-of-japanese-balloon-bombs http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/3758...

dragonwriter 11y ago
Well, a bomb still needs a delivery system, and "strap it to a balloon and set it adrift in the general direction of the continent you want to hit" might have some (miniscule) utility for something you can make a lot of, but with a nuclear weapon you probably want targeting that's a bit more specific. That's not to say that Japan wouldn't have used nukes if it could have gotten them, just that the balloon bombing of the US mainland [0] really illustrates little about their willingness, capability, or likely approach to do so. [0] Well, okay, "North America" might be more accurate.
- tsotha 11y ago
  The Japanese could certainly have delivered the bomb to US targets. They had aircraft carrying submarines. Near the end of the war an operation to attack on the Panama Canal was in the works before the subs were recalled to the home islands in order to make kamikaze attacks on American warships.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > The Japanese could certainly have delivered the bomb to US targets. They had aircraft carrying submarines. Which carried small planes; the largest of which had a loaded weight smaller than any of the early nuclear weapons. The only way those were going to deliver nuclear bombs anywhere was to use the submarine itself as a suicide delivery system, rather than carrying them on the planes.
    - tsotha 11y ago