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> at least not on the terms that we were demanding (and got) Terms that were un-necessary. Japan still has an emperor no? Could have ended the war much earlie

• CydeWeys 7y ago
  It's hard to say with certainty. It's not like we can re-run history and try it again. Japan certainly turned out well with what did happen; it's not clear that a better outcome would have resulted from a less total surrender on their part. There's a lot of value in helping to move forward when you admit that you were completely beaten, not just mostly beaten; the latter leaves the door open for a repeat. And another factor is that we haven't had a nuclear war since Japan, which showed the horrors of nuclear warfare. Had that not happened, maybe real nuclear weapons would have been used by someone later on, when they were much more powerful and more numerous, and even when both sides possessed them? The bombings have helped ensure that something much worse hasn't happened since. And you know what, the Japanese government deserved it. They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary.
  • ekianjo 7y ago
    > And you know what, the Japanese government deserved it. They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary. The government yes. The people did not elect them. They had no choice in the matter, and were also trained into full propaganda mode many years before the war. So targeting civilians with fire-bombing is certainly questionable. Even McNamara said that what they did in Japan would be considered "crimes of war" in case they did not end up victorious.
    • kzrdude 7y ago
      A different perspective, not trying to justify killing civilians. No matter which way a leader comes to power, the population pays the taxes and the ultimate tolls. This means that when we are on the inside, in the country, we can't be more or less complacent with a bad dictator than a bad elected leader, we always pay the price for what they do. It's always our problem.
      • TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        Back-channel peace negotiations had been taking place for quite a while before the war ended. There was a large faction in the Japanese leadership that wanted to end the war, because it was widely understood to be unwinnable. The offer was a negotiated surrender that would end hostilities with some face-saving concessions - specifically for the Emperor. There isn't a perfect historic record of the negotiations, but it's clear the Allies pushed hard for unconditional surrender. If the argument is about minimising the loss of lives, the war could have been ended much earlier. If the argument is about the post-war relationship between the allies/survivors, and which actors the bombs were supposed to send a message to, the situation is much more complex.
        • CydeWeys 7y ago
          The face-saving concessions were an important sticking point. The Japanese leaders didn't deserve them after what they'd did, and it really would have changed the entire post-war dynamic between Japan and other countries, and even more importantly, between the Japanese government and its own people. Here's one term from the Potsdam Declaration, which the Japanese rejected: "The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established." It's not unreasonable to say that had the Allies not continued prosecuting the war and pushing for unconditional surrender that Japan might not have ended up with a democratic government at all. It would have been much worse if the emperor and military figures had stayed in charge, and could have easily led to more repeats of wars of Japanese imperialism. So yeah, I think it's important to look at it holistically and see what the actual long-term outcome after the war was (which was about as ideal as was possible), vs. what would've happened had we just ended the war as quickly as possible to minimize casualties but without getting wholesale reforms in the Japanese form of government.
  • DocTomoe 7y ago
    > They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Applying that standard, there would not be a single American left alive for the constant war they wage since the end of WW2.
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      The key difference is that Japan was defeated utterly; the US was never even close. The last fighting we did on our home soil was the Civil War; discounting that, 1812. In warfare more than almost anything else, might matters.
      • DocTomoe 7y ago
        Indeed. You better pray that the US keeps being able to keep war away from their soil, because what comes around goes around. Especially when people like you gleefully claim that civilians "had it coming".
        • CydeWeys 7y ago
          The thousands of nuclear weapons we have make this an academic question. Everyone knows that we would use them if facing an invasion of our homeland, so there never will be a foreign invasion on our soil. I know we've done some shitty things to a variety of different countries over the years, but those acts are never going to be reciprocated in kind because they're the kinds of acts that only the powerful can do to the weak, and the US is not weak. It's not a value or moral judgment, it's just the reality of how power and force work.
          • DocTomoe 7y ago
            Spoken like a true Roman, ca. 409 AC
  • soperj 7y ago
    >They started the war, killed millions of people in the process (including many millions of civilians in Asia), and then had the gall to try to bargain for decent surrender terms after all that horror they caused? Nope. Sometimes harsh punishment is necessary. Wonder what you have to say about what the US deserves after the Iraq war?
    • CydeWeys 7y ago
      Not the same situation at all? Japan was defeated utterly in WWII. We were nowhere close. We chose to leave; we didn't need terms.
      • soperj 7y ago
        No, no terms necessary. Harsh punishment though.
• dalore 7y ago
  Emperor yes, military no. What's the point?
  • soperj 7y ago
    The point was a month before that the Japanese tried to surrender and their only condition was still having an emperor.