Truman and the Decision to Drop the Bomb...
Was this decision to destroy the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima the "right" and "best" decision? Or was it a "war crime" that History will condemn?
This argument has raged ever since the tragic events which ended WWII in August 1945. Now we shall argue over it.
The argument has crucial important to us and our time, too, as ever since August 1945 humanity has lived nervously in the shade of the "nuclear shadow." The world would never be the same after the first detonation of an atomic weapon on July 16th, 1945 at 0529 HRS, in the Jornada del Muerto desert near the Trinity site in the southwestern New Mexico desert. As J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist on the Manhattan Project, claimed as he watched the first ever mushroom cloud: "...now I am become Death [Shiva], the destroyer of worlds..." World history was changed forever on that White Sands Missile Range desert floor that fateful morning.
But what about the decision to use the bomb in combat against imperial Japan? Think deeply about the dilemma that faced President Truman as a possible invasion of the Japanese home islands approached, and then consider the positions of the Imperial Japanese government and the Allies. Was the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan the "right" one that ultimately saved more lives than it cost? Or were the atomic bombings "war crimes" that were unpardonable under any circumstances? (Or were they both? Could that be possible?)
Our discussion on this topic should embody practical and philosophical principles, firmly embedded in the historical realities of late-1945. Be sure and examine the sources posted here before you comment publicly on these complex yet crucial historical events. Resist vigorously the temptation to be SIMPLISTIC or REDUCTIONIST - do your research before you post.
Your blogsite posting is due Monday morning April 11, 2005 at 8:00 a.m.
posted by 515guyforlife at 3/30/2005 02:42:00 PM
7 Comments:
Hehe First post right on….
– Ambiguous Philanthropist
--(Geof Djernaes)
Truman and the Decision to Drop the Bomb...
First off… let’s talk about ethics. As Mr. Geib explained the Americans and Japanese did not understand each other in terms of culture and ethics, which was the whole reason for the war.
Throughout the duration of the war the Japanese were relentless in their attacks and their strategy to reign supreme in the Pacific, seeing America as weak and what they thought was weak individualism that lead to weak democracy, they believed Americans were old news, a dying nation…. How wrong they were…
Now that the basics were out of the way and I will not go into what we all know, I will say that the Japanese Strategy revolved around no surrender at all costs, it would dishonor the emperor the family and the nation.
The Japanese government sent orders to those under their rule that if they were to be occupied by the us or by any force, they would immediately and gloriously sacrifice themselves for the good of the nation, the idea “Our duty as heavy as a mountain, our lives as light as a feather.” In many ways explains the Japanese samurai culture, they would rather commit suicide than be dishonored.
At this rate the Americans were going to quickly reach a stalemate, when they hit the Japanese mainland, and started to fight further into china.
what happens if a country is so blinded by their own dwindling value of human life that they will throw it away for fear of being dishonored and backed into a wall and eventually dying out, well in many ways this can best be assessed in modern wars or more accurate “feuds/conflicts” with groups like Al Queda in which, we are currently at war with, These radical Wahabiist Muslims claim holy Jihad upon western culture and will do their best to purge us at all costs, this can correlates because very soon the conflict becomes a matter of a few people trying to do as much damage as possible for their own crazy goals.
….Examples….
In World War 2 kamikaze pilots sacrificed their lives and brought down many ships with them, hmmm in this unholy jihad against western culture a few Al Queda members sacrificed their lives to destroy the twin towers of New York... of course 9/11 was not an act of desperation per say but it was a significant attack much like pearl harbor, a more significant example would be the petty quarrles going on in Iraq, incidents like Fallujah and the brutal conflicts with Zarqawi and his forces.
Now obviously these are two entirely different situations, but the mentality stays the same… we will not surrender at any cost, anyone who does from our nation we will shoot them personally… But the point remains valid that this type of fighting cannot proceed for long, especially with Americas war machine “Metal not blood” where we try to use artillery instead of the blood of our soldiers; and very quickly you reach a stalemate, in this war, either you massacre a country or them do it themselves, which brings me to another point, dropping the Atomic bomb provided for a lot less death than there could have been, if it’s the type of situation where America is fighting for unconditional surrender and Japan is fighting for no surrender at all costs, the battles will become increasingly desperate the nation was likely to self implode….
Sorry im getting off topic, rounding back to what I was trying to say the mentality that was bred in these final battles, was one of strenuous retreat, and the samurai culture would not permit it,
So was the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan the "right" one that ultimately saved more lives than it cost? Or were the atomic bombings "war crimes" that were unpardonable under any circumstances? (Or were they both? Could that be possible?)
The bombings through loss of life caused the Japanese government to face fact, they lost, bow your head in shame, and submit to defeat. Otherwise they would have eventually fought to the last man standing or shot themselves.
In no ways were these war crimes because we GAVE the Japanese sufficient warning as to what was going to happen and what America was going to do, it was the Japanese leading castes fault for not evacuating the cities as we declared should have happened. (America dropped leaflets hundreds of thousands of leaflets twice on both Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the leaflets said in kanji, WE HAVE DEVELOPED A TERRIBLE WEAPON AND WE INTEND TO USE IT ON THE PEOPLE OF THIS CITY GET OUT!, and if you don’t believe me its on the internet, and if u still don’t my great great great aunt owns one…)
So in a way we saved the Japanese from themselves, because they would have just worked themselves into these radical extremists like the Wahabiists we are fighting today and it would have turned out even more bitter than what became of the war today.
I’ve said my piece America is Justified...
– Ambiguous Philanthropist (Geof Djernaes)
oops where it says WE INTEND TO USE IT UPON THE PEOPLE OF THIS CITY, i remembered it only said WE INTEND TO USE IT UPON THIS CITY... yea minor/major typo... dont ya hatethose, and i dont want to ruin having the first post...
-- laters
In a decision such as this, either approach you take will face scrutiny from the public. Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ended the war. Yet some people accuse him of committing an unforgivable “war crime.” If he hadn’t dropped the bombs, there would have been negative forces working against him too. There is no way to determine how exactly history would have unfolded if the bombs had never been dropped. However, regardless of this, I believe the bombs to have been a “necessary evil” in the course of history to ensure the safety of America and its citizens.
The warfare techniques of Japan and America were so drastically different that getting the Japanese to surrender was next to impossible. What made this even more difficult was the request for them to remove their emperor from power. Revered as a godlike figure by his people, the emperor had always been a figure that the Japanese people followed unconditionally. There was the tradition of honor in the Japanese culture, and surrender was not an option. This culture clash led to increased tension between the warring nations, and called for immediate action. But should this action have been to drop two atomic bombs on Japan to ensure surrender? I say yes. The desperate measures taken by Japanese forces, like the suicide bombers, had shown their unwillingness to give in. There was also the fear of the unpredictable nature of Japan. The attack at Pearl Harbor had happened at what America had believed to be a time of peace. Could America have afforded to wait? Perhaps, but the atomic bombs ensured the almost immediate fear and respect of Japanese extremists. The death toll of the atomic bomb was not any greater than the fire bombings, but the initial damage and lasting effects of the radiation proved an effective tool in getting the Japanese to surrender. The initial shock, and fear of another bombing, left Japan with no other choice.
I don’t know how things would have worked out if the bombs had never been dropped. There would have eventually been surrender at some point, but it would not be without several more casualties than necessary on both sides. The Japanese were a formidable opponent- brave to a fault even- and without this “necessary evil” of the atomic bomb, the fight could have lasted until the last man on the Japanese side.
Geof Djernaes
First off… Bartonious - Chadd you both take me too seriously, I was merely adding with retrospect that in History from our standpoint our attitudes involve the tension that we are experiencing in the world today. In retrospect the Japanese were wrong and America did not fade but it did gain and prosper… yet I did not mean to say our republic democracy was not infallible I merely stated that we are stronger than we have ever been.
Bart u did bring up a good point and im glad you hinted on it, but if your country was on the verge of destruction Tokyo was just murdered… what do u do…. If you have no defense allotting to your mainland and all that’s left are the common people with land mines attatched to their backs as the last line of defense your in no shape to fight. The samurai culture would not back down when they knew they were doomed, they would have fought to the death. Now I agree that the leaders may or may not have believed it, but there was a chance for negotiations… they snubbed it… therefore they had sufficient chance to talk before we actually committed to dropping our weapons.
Mainly to chadd – Im was primarily saying it was their leaders faults that the death toll was that large, the odds were stacked against the Japanese, we gave them multiple chances to negotiate, we gave them an ultimatum, and finally we gave them a warning.. get out because this city is going up in flames…. The leaders hat the chance 3 times to save their people that’s more than just dropping a weapon and mercilessly slaughtering thousands of people, that’s enough time for them to surrender adaquetly…
We can always sit back and say how we could have changed history or what decision could have been made, but hell we are all alive today arn’t we… and though history may be full of blood and war we have survived this long and death tolls during wars have gone significantly down after the creation of the weapons imagine if things had been fixed during world war 1 this way, with the responsibility of such WMD’s came the more mature world of today… though it was a gory war we still learned from it.
Now after I have said something jarbled and am extremely out of it right now… that is my effective refute
Wow, a lot of people wrote a lot on this topic. I'm in contrast probably going to be minimalistic since I still haven't recovered from spring break syndrome myself. Anyhoo, I think that the dropping of the bomb was both the best decision and a war crime. The entire war revolved around the murder of innocent civilians on all sides, which remains an inexcusable crime, and in this context, the bomb was only one of a myriad of abuses that were widely accepted without serious question for the sake of the war. The war itself was built on war crimes. That said, the dropping of the atomic bombs in the long run I believe saved the Japanese people more mass suicides and huge bombings than a direct assult through conventional means would have. And in response to Ms. Stam's message, which stated that in the long term there were not significant changes in Japans culture due to the dropping of the atomic bomb in their attitudes towards militarism and women's rights, I would have to STRONGLY disagree. There were HUGE cultural changes in Japan, and this is reflected through their media as well as many of their public statements. Many modern Japanese anime, such as "Trigun" and "Ruroni Kenshin" (Translates to something like Samurai Kenshin I think) revolve around pacifistic fighters who refuse to kill anyone, who regret previous actions and struggle to uphold this ideal. And Japan has pretty much ceased its military ideologies, slowly becoming nearly as "American" as America, probably in large part due to the military limitations the US imposed on it after its almost unconditional surrender. So if Ms Stam is trying to imply that the dropping of the bomb and subsequent occupation of Japan were generally uneffective in reducing the threat of future Japanese militarism, I have considerable trouble acknowledging this point of view. Regardless, the use of such a powerful weapon was most definately a war crime on Americas part; but no more so than the numerous other bombings and direct attacks on civilians that persisted throughout the war. I think the discussion only focuses on the atomic bomb because of it's overwhelming and fearful power; but the question that should be at the heart of this debate is that of whether or not direct attacks on civilians can be justified throughout the war, including not only atomic weaponry, but also conventional bombings, which killed in total over the course of the war far more than the atomic bombings combined did.
oh yea and to add to jareds.. yes i have heard of it that was like the science experiments performed on live test subjects using every type of biological virus known to man, part of the reason the Japanese got off with a SLIGHTLY less severe sentence was because they gave the US human test results on Anthrax, Plague, hmm what else was it... small pox, i think ebola as well but im not sure...
anyway making a long story short the history channel had an interesting special on it, where round 10-50K chinese were included in these experiments from live dissection to virus treatment in some special unit called B-8 i thinkit was...
Robyn: I do appreciate it - and when I warned against "simplistic" or "reductionist" responses, yours surely counts as a considered and complex response to a difficult question.
Well done. Even more impressive, taking into account it was posted on the last day of Spring Break!
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