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Your quote from Truman's diary exactly proves that the US president was lied to, if he believed that: "The target will be a purely military one and we will iss

by acqq 8y ago

Your quote from Truman's diary exactly proves that the US president was lied to, if he believed that: "The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement" Since the planers always knew their goals: the whole city populated with humans (which obviously can't be called a military target more than any city can be) was selected simply to "test" the bomb's destructive power. It's widely documented: a few cities in Japan were therefore intentionally, according to the months long military planing, spared from being bombed with conventional bombs by the US(!) The list of the targets was planned and revised. On the shortest list of the targets was also Kyoto, which was removed from that list only on the intervention of Henry Stimson, the US secretary of war under both Roosevelt and under Truman. Kyoto was just lucky that Stimson was before the war a "tourist" in Kyoto, in 1920's. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in August 6 and 9. But even in July that year "Japan was so beaten that the U.S. continuing further bombing and bombardment was tantamount to flogging a dead horse." https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/12/04/commentary/japan-commentary/stimsons-love-kyoto-saved-bomb/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/12/04/commentary/j...

masonic 8y ago
But even in July that year "Japan was so beaten On Luzon alone, there were still 115,000 active Japanese forces in July 1945.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Not to mention that there was still a Japanese army running around beheading anything that moved in China (a slight exaggeration I know). They might have been beaten strategically but they sure weren't going to surrender anytime soon. The Japanese were willing to follow their cause to death (and they did so on Iwo Jima and Okinawa with no indication that they would not to the same on the home islands).
yesenadam 8y ago
Well, here's Humanity's take on that: The restraining effects of moral identity can be weakened by evading any clear recognition of what you are doing. In his private diary Truman wrote a passage on the bomb. Given the decision he was making, there is something disappointing about the quality of his thought: [diary quote] The passage gives evidence of the need to escape from any clear, plain statement of what he was about to do. There is the denial of the full human impact of the bomb by seeing the victims as ‘Japs’ and savages. There is the half-suggestion that the bomb may not work anyway: we only ‘think’ we have found a way to split the atom. We are exonerated because we are giving them a warning, even though we know they will ignore it. Above all, there is the evasion of the fact that an atomic bomb dropped on a city cannot possibly be directed at purely military targets. In Hiroshima civilians outnumbered soldiers by more than six to one. President Truman certainly had some idea of the civilian casualties later. After Nagasaki he stopped the atomic bombing, saying that the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible, and that he did not like the idea of killing ‘all those kids’. Perhaps at some level he knew about this before Hiroshima. If not, his concern for the children was too small to prompt him to find out. It was not only the President who had to face or evade a moral decision. The scientists who developed the bomb were also faced with a question of conscience. While some confronted it, others took refuge in evasion.
- acqq 8y ago
  It doesn’t help: the president just accepted what was being told to him. The scientists helped making the bomb because they believed that the nazis would gave been faster otherwise. But those that actually decided carefully planned to kill the whole cities, for a long time, and only “to see the bomb’s power.” Most of the scientists objected.

by acqq 8y ago

masonic 8y ago

But even in July that year "Japan was so beaten On Luzon alone, there were still 115,000 active Japanese forces in July 1945.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Not to mention that there was still a Japanese army running around beheading anything that moved in China (a slight exaggeration I know). They might have been beaten strategically but they sure weren't going to surrender anytime soon. The Japanese were willing to follow their cause to death (and they did so on Iwo Jima and Okinawa with no indication that they would not to the same on the home islands).

yesenadam 8y ago

Well, here's Humanity's take on that: The restraining effects of moral identity can be weakened by evading any clear recognition of what you are doing. In his private diary Truman wrote a passage on the bomb. Given the decision he was making, there is something disappointing about the quality of his thought: [diary quote] The passage gives evidence of the need to escape from any clear, plain statement of what he was about to do. There is the denial of the full human impact of the bomb by seeing the victims as ‘Japs’ and savages. There is the half-suggestion that the bomb may not work anyway: we only ‘think’ we have found a way to split the atom. We are exonerated because we are giving them a warning, even though we know they will ignore it. Above all, there is the evasion of the fact that an atomic bomb dropped on a city cannot possibly be directed at purely military targets. In Hiroshima civilians outnumbered soldiers by more than six to one. President Truman certainly had some idea of the civilian casualties later. After Nagasaki he stopped the atomic bombing, saying that the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrible, and that he did not like the idea of killing ‘all those kids’. Perhaps at some level he knew about this before Hiroshima. If not, his concern for the children was too small to prompt him to find out. It was not only the President who had to face or evade a moral decision. The scientists who developed the bomb were also faced with a question of conscience. While some confronted it, others took refuge in evasion.

acqq 8y ago
It doesn’t help: the president just accepted what was being told to him. The scientists helped making the bomb because they believed that the nazis would gave been faster otherwise. But those that actually decided carefully planned to kill the whole cities, for a long time, and only “to see the bomb’s power.” Most of the scientists objected.