August 9, 1945

Actually, I think it is this that should be repudiated:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm

Mike

In no way was this an atrocity, any more then war itself is an atrocity. The fact of the matter is that Japan sowed the wind with the attack on Pearl Harbor and reaped the whirlwind at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of deaths which would have occurred on both sides during an invasion far exceeds the number killed in the two cities.

On the bright side, it's also the anniversary of Richard Nixon resigning. Every year, in fact.

That is an atrocity, and presenting it as a lesser of two evils, a necessary evil and rightful punishment doesn't make it any less of an atrocity.

The fact of the matter is, invasion wasn't really "the only other option". The conditions which made it the only acceptable option to the US war leadership have little to do with preserving life.

There are no winners in a war, only losers. Yes dropping the bomb was morally reprehensible. But just about ever act of war is morally reprehensible, especially when those acts are targeted at civilians. We were wrong, but unfortunately no one will learn from our mistake. Dozens of governments will go on to attack civilian targets (Israel and Hezbollah...) and commit atrocities. So sad...

Hanford (Project W) in Washington State was where the plutonium dropped on Nagasaki was manufactured.

I grew up at Richland, the town Hanford built, my father a scientist at Hanford in the 50s and 60s, and have been doing digital paintings based on photos from the Hanford Declassified Project which released over 70,000 photos (and thousands more other documents) to the public in recent years. A search of the database for Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives zero results, which inspired the paintings. An ongoing project, I was blogging the paintings but have set them up on a website with additional commentary and other related photos from the archive.

Radiation leaking from old tanks at Hanford has created a plume that threatens the Columbia River. The area is today perhaps the most toxic place in the western hemisphere.

http://www.idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/hanford_declassified/index.htm

SLC's comment overlooks that Japan was already suing for peace, and that Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's recent book (_Racing the Enemy_, Belnap Press, 2006) shows that the Japanese were more worried about being attacked by the Soviet Union than they were about the bombs, meaning that a little more time and pressure would have given them even more reason to surrender. After all, bombing a second city only three days after the first hardly gave them a lot of time to see exactly what they were up against.

Actually, the casualty toll of the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945 was significantly higher than that of the Nagasaki bombing.

Yet, the two atomic bombs accounted for only 3 percent of the total destruction of Japan. Total destruction was desired in order to control the region. The same is happening today in Iraq.

SLC's comment overlooks that Japan was already suing for peace, and that Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's recent book (_Racing the Enemy_, Belnap Press, 2006) shows that the Japanese were more worried about being attacked by the Soviet Union than they were about the bombs, meaning that a little more time and pressure would have given them even more reason to surrender. After all, bombing a second city only three days after the first hardly gave them a lot of time to see exactly what they were up against.

And sadly, that ignores the fact that they where months from having squadrons of "working" jet aircraft, which the German's they bought the designs from had never perfected. The successful flight of a significant number of those could easilly have convinced them that and "threat" possed by Russia was irrelevant.

There is no easy, cut and dry, explanations for what would have happened, who actually was aware of what or how things would have changed due to different decisions. Arguing that you "know" it would have all been different, because of some factor X, is pure bullshit.

If you're going to write ill-mannered comments, may I suggest that you check them more carefully before posting?

I must respectfully disagree. The military leadership of Japan refused to accept an unconditional surrender prior to and after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was finally Emperor Hirohito that had to force the military leadership to accept the unconditional surrender. A negotiated peace was simply unacceptable to the allies and an unconditional surrender was unacceptable to the Japanese. Something had to give and documents from the time show that the Japanese wished to engineer a military victory to improve their negotiating position.

The invasion of Okinawa alone cost the lives of 50,000-150,000 civilians, 100,000-125,000 Japanese military personnel, and 12,500 US military personnel. The cost in lives of an invasion of Japan would have been staggering. Compare that to the 70,000-80,000 killed at Hiroshima and the the 70,000 killed at Nagasaki.

I will admit that the bombings did serve as a very public display of power to the USSR.

When anyone uses the "sow...reap" thing, I immediately check for signs of irony. If none are apparent, I assume until proven otherwise that the person is a shallow, dumb callous asshole, and have yet to be proven wrong.

Why is it that the ASSHOLES that justify war with the quote previously alluded to, and usually back it up with some sicko version of the "there are NO innocents in war" meme neveer have the slightest chance of actually being on the receiving end of the violence?
That's one pretty easy question to answer, isn't it?

I was honestly surprised to see this posting... it seems quite Bush-ish to give labels like evil. Isn't this ignoring the complexity of war and the "worth fighting for" aspect of freedom? Perhaps the purpose is to keep that controversial flavor to the website to collect lots of comments and get awards for the science blog with the most traffic. Nuts! ... it worked.

It's 100% clear the A-bombs saved lives, particularly among the Japanese, since continued regular bombings in preparation for an invasion and then what the US sincerely believed would be a suicidal defense would have killed multiples more. At the time, the Japanese also held nearly half a million prisoners and, given the horrific, senseless slaughter in Manilla - and orders never followed to execute those prisoners - we can only guess at what would have been their fates.

Arguments the Japanese were ready to surrender aren't supported by evidence. Even the low-level contacts - such as in Switzerland - did not contemplate surrender but instead were looking for a way to create a new alliance to turn the war in a new direction. Their government was simply unwilling to admit defeat and, as minutes of Cabinet meetings show, we were convinced invasion would lead to disaster for Japan.

It's interesting that Hiroshima (and Nagasaki and a few other locations) were not bombed conventionally because the A-bomb project wanted a clean target to see if the weapon really worked. That is documented in Gen. Groves' book, which also notes Kyoto was placed on the list to save it for Japan's reconstruction (or it would have been fire-bombed).

The negative is simply this: such a weapon one would hope would never be used, never even be contemplated. It is a mark of humanity's terrible moral and ethical failings that these atrocious weapons exist. That they may have kept us from fighting even more conventional wars with the Soviets has not diminished the number of sub-atomic level wars waged in the last 60 years. That is another form of atrocity, that we could have such weapons and then figure out ways to kill each other anyway.

Perhaps one of the greatest positives of the bombs has been that it allowed Japan to move away from its tradition of militarism. They have used the A-bombs to change their society for the better. Pity so much of the rest of the world has not.

Re Goddogit

I will not respond in kind to your characterization of me as an as*****. I will quote General Sherman, war is hell and can't be civilized. I will also quote President Roosevelt just after Pearl Harbor, "Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo have been asking for it for a long time and now they're going to get it."

This is one of those historical events I have a difficult time judging, and it isn't for lack of information because I have read extensively on it. In all wars, most of the dying is done by people who sowed no wind and deserve no whirlwind.

It happened, we make an effort to live with it. So do the Japanese. I'll consider that no lessons have been learned until the day someone says; "Let's find a nonviolent way to solve this or that international problem."

This is a good aniversary to re-read John Hersey's Hiroshima.

If not for the allies' refusal of a negotiated peace, an invasion would not have been the only alternative to the atomic bomb. I can't stress this enough.

Of course, as pointed out earlier, this also goes for the Japanese refusal of unconditional surrender, but both positions aren't equivalent: the Japanese had been given reason to believe (in addition to a certain preconception to that belief) that unconditional surrender would come at a great cost for their nation.

In comparison the reasons why the allies' couldn't settle for a negotiated peace weight even less against the cost of an invasion or the bombs.

Total destruction was desired in order to control the region. The same is happening today in Iraq.

Talk about overblown analogies. The destruction in Iraq is not 1/100 the scale of the destruction visited upon Japan and Germany during the war.

Also, commissarjs is correct. The claims that the Japanese were suing for peace before Hiroshima and Nagasaki are overblown at best. The military was actively preparing the nation for an invasion, with every man, woman, and child expected to resist the invaders. True, in June, the government had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to intercede and mediate a peace agreement, but only after Japan had produced a military victory (i.e., repulsion of the Even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Nothing ever came of it because Japan never produced such a military victory to strengthen its bargaining position. Still the Japanese military refused to surrender; only the personal intervention of Emperor Hirohito was able to change that even after the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb.

Personally, I've always understood the rationale for dropping the Hiroshima bomb. As horrible as it was, it wasn't really different in overall magnitude than the destruction that had rained down upon Japanese cities for months before, and any Commander-in-Chief, when presented with a new "super weapon" that could potentially end the war quickly (and scare the Soviets at the same time) would have been hard-pressed not to order its use, regardless of the death toll and particularly when for several months before his air force had been raining comparable destruction upon German and Japanese cities on an almost nightly basis. The Nagasaki bomb, however, has always been a bit of a puzzle to me.

The bomings were horrific and I could not have made the decision to drop those bombs. I would have been frozen, unable to do it. But those bombs ended the war. So many people were dying every week that the same number of people would have died if they had delayed the decision another few weeks. (I had verification for these stats at one time and now I can't find them, sorry.)

It's easy to sit in judgement a half-century later. It's tough to see the world as it was seen before you were born. I do know that in 5 years more than 60 million people died and it didn't look like the Japanese were going to stop. I don't know if dropping those bombs were a good or bad thing and I don't think it's my place to decide.

We must be very careful about 20/20 hindsight moral judgments. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not simple to judge, I don't believe, if we force ourselves as much as possible into Truman's shoes. Truman didn't know the Cold War was coming. He didn't know how long he might have to wait to strangle the Japanese into unconditional surrender (and neither do any of us). He certainly didn't know about the politicking at the highest levels of the Japanese government. And I would ask this counterfactual, if we are going to engage in counterfactuals - suppose Truman had not used the bomb? Suppose instead he had chosen conventional warfare, and the Japanese had fought to the bitter end, say for another year of war? Suppose it then came out that there had been a weapon that might have prevented all that, which he had refused to use? Impeachment would have only been the beginning of his troubles - he would have had to seek asylum, if he could have gotten out of the country.

"We must be very careful about 20/20 hindsight moral judgments."

"It's easy to sit in judgement a half-century later."

Few decisions by leaders through history are graced with this argument.

There is another issue about the A-bombs, and that's where they were dropped.

Did cities need to be flattened? Could they have dropped it in a harbour? Taken a big chunk out of Mount Fuji?

I'm not a historian or even a minor dabbler in what went on then, but I have this unpleasant feeling that these demonstrations of catastrophic power - both of them - could have had their effect without killing quite so many people.

Children melted.

Regardless of the circumstances, it was an atrocity. Not the only one in history, not the only one in that war, but it still was one.

About dropping the bomb on cities instead of non-populated or low population areas. This would not have had the desired effect (regardless of its morality) because it would have been seen as a lack of strength by the Japanese military (What, you don't have the resolve to actually damage us with this new super weapon? Why should we surrender if the only thing at stake is some rock?)

Hehehe, self righteous americans!, the true, pure and best ones . Never do wrong, always morally justfied and spreading peace and freedom all over the world. Gosh! sometimes it is so hard to share the planet with people like that

"I have this unpleasant feeling that these demonstrations of catastrophic power - both of them - could have had their effect without killing quite so many people."

I tend to agree with this.

The fact is, we had two bombs at the time and could probably have produced more in a few short months.

Even with just the two, we could easily have done a demonstration with one (eg, on Mt Fuji as Richteous Bubba said) and if that did not have the desired effect, we could have reassessed the situation and dropped the second on a populated area if we decided that was necessary.

It is not valid to simply argue that "such a demostration would never have had the desired effect on the Japanese government", when we certainly had the wherewithall at the time to test that theory.

I simply don't buy the argument that we had no other option -- and this assessment is not based on knoweldge that truman did not have the time (ie, not based on "20/20 hindsight").

It is instructive to note that several of the scientists who worked on the bomb (inclduing Oppenheimer, who headed the project) opposed dropping the bombs on population centers, but were rebuffed by Truman. I doubt truman even understood the magnitude of what the bomb could do.

I must side with the people that believe war is hell, and we were only doing what was needed, to the best of our knowledge at the time, to stop a war we in fact did not start...

And oh...
People believing that we could have shown the Japanese military what the bomb could have done, and by doing so, caused them to stop the war, really forget who you were dealing with at that time. The culture already saw us fire-bombing them to hell as an acceptable loss (which was far FAR more terrible a way to die) and this did nothing to stop them. They had to see, due to their mind-set at the time, that to continue with the war would bring about a total destruction to the nation of Japan. Only this way were they able to find surrender a more honorable choice between the two options...

"but were rebuffed by Truman."

Strangely, and I don't think that it matters one way or another except in consideration of Truman's character, I seem to vaguely remember Truman expressing the opinion (at one point) that a military installation would be best.

I'd have to look it up again, to be sure.

Hiroshima was a secondary target (I don't recall why the primary targets were not bombed -- probably could cover or something) and was chosen because it was a logistics and industrial center (as was Nagasaki). It wasn't a totally civilian target (just like Dresden, Germany, etc.).

You know, I haven't decided if I think it was necessary to drop the bomb, but there is one thing that bothers me a lot, and that is that Hiroshima and Nagasaki get vasty more sympathy and outcry than other cities that were totally obliterated but with "conventional" weapons. There were a lot of large cities totally wiped off the map in WWII: Tokyo, Kobe, Dresen, Hamberg, Warsaw......

Is this "only" because it was a nuke? If we had firebombed Hiroshima into oblivion (which would have had essentially the same human death toll with similarly brutal deaths) would there be all the outcry about it not being necessary? Why is there no outcry (or rather vastly less) that the 100's of thousands of Germans (and other Japanese) firebombed to death was not necessary?

I find it darkly amusing, albeit predictable, that people are more motivated by rapid, catastrophic destruction than slow, predictable destruction.

Who complains about the firebombing of Dresden? Yet people scream and cry about Hiroshima -- and they ignore the steady stream of horrible death that afflicts the world.

The culture already saw us fire-bombing them to hell as an acceptable loss (which was far FAR more terrible a way to die)

You seem to be under the impression that everyone killed by an atom bomb dies in a flash of light. Some perhaps, others are picked up and hurled against more solid objects, some die after a building falls on them (sometimes a long time after), some die from high-degree flash burns only after many hours of agony, some last for days before the radiation kills them, some last for years before radiation-induced cancer kills them, and some are unfortunate enough to be conceived after the weapon is used but still suffer genetic effects. Try googling for hibakusha.

And, of course, some die in the fires started by the explosion. For them, at least, there is little difference.

Caledonian, I think you'll find that there has, in fact, been quite a lot of pointed criticism about the Dresden raid.

One of the reasons Hiroshima and Nagasaki get more attention then Dresden and Tokyo is that the latter pair only took place through the use of hundreds of planes, whereas the former pair required only one plane each. Why shouldn't people be awfully impressed by that fact?

There's something redolent of creationist revisionism in the claims that nobody complains about the firebombing of German and Japanese civilians. I suggest you guys do some research.

Most people understand the linguistic conventions of saying "always" for "very frequently", but since it seems you are not one of those people, I will rephrase myself.

Complaints about the firebombing are significantly rarer than those about the atombombing, and the disproportion is especially marked when you compare the death totals for the two sets of events. The atombomb complaints appear to be far more widespread than a simple concern for human life or even the danger posed by such weapons would imply.

I am reminded of a rocket/mortar attack in Sarajevo in which a marketplace full of people was killed. The international outcry it received was remarkable, especially since the region had generally been hemmoraging that number of deaths each day in smaller, isolated events. The human mind's heuristics seem vulnerable to sensationalism.

The same thinking applies to the US and Japanese leaderships of the time, Caledonian, and it's implied by Lago upthread.

Read this: http://www.doug-long.com/quotes.htm

Then do a google on James Byrnes.

This entry from http://www.doug-long.com/byrnes.htm
is particulary rich:

"Byrnes had his own ideas about the a-bomb. In addition to defeating Japan, he wanted to keep Russia from expanding their influence in Asia; he also wanted to restrain them in Europe. Manhattan Project scientist Leo Szilard met with Byrnes on May 28, 1945. Szilard later wrote of the meeting,

"[Byrnes] was concerned about Russia's postwar behavior. Russian troops had moved into Hungary and Rumania, and Byrnes thought it would be very difficult to persuade Russia to withdraw her troops from these countries, that Russia might be more manageable if impressed by American military might, and that a demonstration of the bomb might impress Russia." (Spencer Weart and Gertrud Szilard, Leo Szilard: His version of the Facts, pg. 184)."

As for those who don't know the difference between conventional bombing of any kind and using an atomic bomb, you are the most retarded people on earth. May you never, ever learn the difference but you'd also better learn to keep your mouth shut about an atrocity which you don't have the vaguest notion of a clue.

Is this "only" because it was a nuke? If we had firebombed Hiroshima into oblivion (which would have had essentially the same human death toll with similarly brutal deaths) would there be all the outcry about it not being necessary?

I find this particular crime horrifying in that it was done with a sense of tinkering, us playing with a new toy and demonstrating what we could do as a first use of it. It's a first expression of "the button", the idea that a small action by one man (depraved or just like us?) could upend everything and destroy thousands of people in a variety of horrible ways.

Meaningful AI will be excellent to blow away with a virtual double-barreled shotgun once it arrives.

Doesn't anybody read Vonnegut any more?

Nelc said...

"You seem to be under the impression that everyone killed by an atom bomb dies in a flash of light."

What seems to you is not the case, and I know all is not such, and I never said it was..

"Some perhaps, others are picked up and hurled against more solid objects, some die after a building falls on them (sometimes a long time after), some die from high-degree flash burns only after many hours of agony,"

All, so far, the same as what would be in fire-bomb attacks that were rather common at that time...

"some last for days before the radiation kills them, "

Same with many burn injuries...

"some last for years before radiation-induced cancer kills them, and some are unfortunate enough to be conceived after the weapon is used but still suffer genetic effects. Try googling for hibakusha."

What gets me, is there is somehow a more noble way to kill people. Killing is killing. As stated, we were fire-bombing the crap out of the Japanese, and it is FAR from a pleasant way to die. Being nuked is not a worse way to die.

Nukes have only one real danger outside of more conventional weapons, and that is the idea that we now have so much power, we could possible wipe out all of human life.

The idea that people seem to think they know that the Japanese would have responded to diplomatic talks is talk, and talk alone. Everything seemed to point towards a "Never surrender", attitude where people about to be captured were jumping off of cliffs and killing themselves and their children rather than. We also know this was the general attitude of the military by their actions, as well as their words...

Regarding 'what-ifs' and Hiroshima, I heartily recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's linked short stories 'The Lucky Strike' and 'A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions'. 'The Lucky Strike' in particular makes harrowing reading - could YOU drop the bomb?

We also know that this attitude wasn't absolute, since they did surrender.

There's a reason why unconditional surrender was a point of some controversy.

Of course, the single most important bit of hindsight available to us is that we know the Japanese did, in fact, surrender, and in relative short order after the bombing. This allows us to imagine scenarios in which the surrender could have been achieved without dropping the bomb on these two cities. Truman had no so such knowledge, and so he was faced with a different problem.

I disagree. Truman didn't know it was going to work, but I'm pretty sure he entertained the notion that there was a strong possibility. Unless I'm mistaken, forcing surrender was the stated goal of the bombing before and after. That implies that he wasn't convinced that the "no surrender" attitude was unalterable.

You're overestimating the value of hindsight, in this instance.

I'm going to skip past the 1,000 word essays because I have one simple question on this subject that nobody's even answered.

What if the US had taken bomb #1 and detonated it in a field in Japan somewhere? Would it have not served the same purpose with no casualties (the implication being that we have more than one of these...)

As for those who don't know the difference between conventional bombing of any kind and using an atomic bomb, you are the most retarded people on earth. May you never, ever learn the difference but you'd also better learn to keep your mouth shut about an atrocity which you don't have the vaguest notion of a clue.

Ah hmmm...

I don't really see much difference between having your skin hanging in rags because you were hit with a flash of radiation and having third-degree burns from being caught in a firestorm, at least not in the human-suffering sense. Nukes leave residual radiation, of course, but not nearly as much as is generally thought. I think perhaps you're not the person who should be telling others to be silent.

"What if the US had taken bomb #1 and detonated it in a field in Japan somewhere? Would it have not served the same purpose with no casualties (the implication being that we have more than one of these...)"

Considering that incinerating an entire city didn't produce surrender and that even a second incineration of a city almost didn't produce surrender, why do you think blowing up a field would have done the job that two atomic bombings of cities only barely managed to accomplish? Seriously. Or are you really still unaware that Hiroshima alone didn't produce surrender?

BTW, the US was reading the Japanese diplomatic traffic and knew that a number of Japanese diplomats were advising acceptance of the Potsdam declaration. Unfortunately, the responses from Tokyo showed that that even if the survival of the institution of the Emperor was guaranteed, the Japanese weren't ready to surrender, but wanted to avoid the occupation of Japan (without which the militarists would have retained their power and been free to try it again later on. Even with outright surrender, the propaganda in Japan since the war has portrayed Japan as a victim in the war and glosses over (to say the least) the millions done to death in the Japanese quest for autarchy. Japan has never gone through the process of facing up to what was done in her name during the war.

"Considering that incinerating an entire city didn't produce surrender and that even a second incineration of a city almost didn't produce surrender, why do you think blowing up a field would have done the job that two atomic bombings of cities only barely managed to accomplish?"

The more conventional bombings that preceded the atomic ones pretty much show that the number of casualties might not have a direct relation to the result. Unless it was cumulative, but I always had a different impression.

In no way was this an atrocity, any more then war itself is an atrocity. The fact of the matter is that Japan sowed the wind with the attack on Pearl Harbor and reaped the whirlwind at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This sick defense of an atrocity is based on the brain-damaged idea that countries, rather than people, are agents; it's the same reasoning that Ward Churchill uses to rationalize 9/11. The people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the same people who made the decision to attack Pearl Harbor.

The number of deaths which would have occurred on both sides during an invasion far exceeds the number killed in the two cities.

It is well-established by historians that no attack was necessary; Japan would have surrendered had the Allies not demanded unconditional surrender that included elimination of the Emperorship, which the Japanese saw as a godhead. Ironically, after the bombs and the ensuing unconditional surrender, MacArthur sensibly allowed the Emperor to retain his throne in order to maintain social cohesion.

There is another issue about the A-bombs, and that's where they were dropped.

Which is probably why Truman's radio address announcing the bombs was a lie: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."

You can hear the first sentence for yourself at http://www.dannen.com/sounds/truman.au

The other alternatives to trying to force a surrender by Japan with atomic bombs were an amphibious invasion of Japan, which would have killed untold numbers of people and would have probably have involved using A bombs on the beacheads, or imposing a naval blockade on Japan until it surrendered. The latter would likely have lead to massive starvation on the Japanese mainland during the winter of 1945-46, and would not have stopped those Japanese forces abroad from continuing to fight, causing untold numbers of deaths amongst soldiers and noncombatants in places like China and Burma. To be blunt all the options in 1945 were awful. Some ways of dying are more horrible than others, but dead is dead, and the longer the war continued the higher the total body count would have been.

That was then. This is now.
Differing standards are applied in wars then/now.

Also the allies had had enough by that point.
Yes, it was horrible, but, as others have pointed out, it almost certainly saved lives in the end.
How many people died in the "convetional" firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo etc?
And the allies were responding in kind, through the years of total war, they had themseleves become brutalised, they had themselves become dragons, in order to oppose the dragons of Nazism and Jap militarism.

A very similar thing is happening right now, in S. Lebanon, because Hizbollah, in contravention of all the Geneva conventions, are deliberately placing themselves among civilians, or on top of UN bunkers, still firing rockets at the Israelis, and effectively saying "yah, booh cant shhot at us!"
To which the Israeli response is: "We've had enough - bang."

As with other writers here, I don't know if the a-bomb attacks were "necessary" or not. I tend to think that there must have been military targets, concentrations of troops or ships or important bases that could have been targeted instead.

Also, Japan consists of islands. So, wouldn't a blockade and siege have ultimately led to surrender? Of course then you have the danger of mass starvation if the military leaders remained obstinate. Would the Japanese forces in China and Southeast Asia have continued to massacre Chinese and others as they did in the "Rape of Nanjing" with more than 300,000 civilian deaths. All in all, it is a hard call.

Many writers here have rightly mentioned the attacks on other cities with great destruction. But those aren't even the most important collective killings of civilians.

Has anyone even heard of the British organized famine in Bengal from 1942 to 1945? This famine killed around 4 million Bengalis. It was not only preventable, it was intentionally organized.

http://www.samarthbharat.com/bengalholocaust.htm

"Food deliveries from other parts of the country to Bengal were refused by the government in order to make food artificially scarce. This was an especially cruel policy introduced in 1942 under the title "Rice Denial Scheme." The purpose of it was, as mentioned earlier, to deny an efficient food supply to the Japanese after a possible invasion. Simultaneously, the government authorized free merchants to purchase rice at any price and to sell it to the government for delivery into governmental food storage. So, on one hand government was buying every grain of rice that was around and on the other hand, it was blocking grain from coming into Bengal from other regions of the country."

"The bad situation in Bengal was discussed in the British Parliament during a meeting at which only 10% of all members participated. Repeated requests for food imports to India (400 Million people) led to the delivery of approximately half a million tons of cereal in the years 1943 and 1944. In contrast to this was the net import to Great Britain (50 Million people) of 10 million tons in the second half of the year 1943 alone. Churchill repeatedly denied all food exports to India, in spite of the fact that about 2.4 million Indians served in British units during the Second World War."

I don't think that these civilian deaths are ever presented in accountings of causalities during WWII. The Japanese killed an estimated 9 million Chinese during the war, at least. The 4 million Bengalis starved to death by the British is nearly half of that. It is about the same as the 4 million people killed by the Japanese during its occupation of Indonesia.

So, what is it about people that makes wars necessary? Couldn't civilizations have developed with a different model, one in which the leaders themselves duke it out over what they're fighting about rather than the entire population? Throwing possible sexism into the mix, would wars be less frequent if women were in charge (being on an individual level less prone to physical violence)? Genocide in Darfur, mass starvation in DR Congo, yes, bombing of Dresden, how about Laos, which had more bombs dropped per capita than anywhere else ever, and the leftovers are still killing people every year? Everything about war is an atrocity. Yeah, yeah, if we don't arm ourselves, someone will beat the shit out of us, but where does all of that come from in the first place?

This sick defense of an atrocity is based on the brain-damaged idea that countries, rather than people, are agents

yet Prime Minister Suzuki was quoted after the war stating that the a-bombs were a heaven-sent opportunity to surrender before the public rose up in general insurrection.

Here's what Hirohito said to his people about the surrender:

"Despite the best that has been done by everyone -- the gallant fighting of the military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization."

Anti-bomb folks, that's historical understanding staring at you, right in the face. What the USAAF did to Japan was indeed an atrocity, yet the central fact of 1945 was that the Japanese had, by their despicable actions over the past 10+ years, made themselves persona non grata to the entire world, save their buddies in Nazi Germany, which by that summer had themselves been expunged from history.

PZ writes "The idea that people seem to think they know that the Japanese would have responded to diplomatic talks is talk, and talk alone. Everything seemed to point towards a "Never surrender", attitude where people about to be captured were jumping off of cliffs and killing themselves and their children rather than. We also know this was the general attitude of the military by their actions, as well as their words..."

PZ is quie right. The Japanes were prepared to defend Japan at any cost. An invasion not only would've wrought complete devastation, with unheard of casualties on both sides. I had a couple of High School teachers who fought in the Pacific. They said the jingosim of the US marines and army was so palpable, that an invasions would've resulted in wholesale slaughter.

The A-bomb took the fight out of Japan, forced Hirohito to admit publicly to his people he wasn't God, and in a short span of time changed a Militaristic society into pacifist prosperous one.

Anybody who thinks this could've been done through negotatiation is a delusional moonbat quite frankly. Any negotatited settlement would have left the Emperor and military in control of Japan. No way Japan would have ever settled for anything else.. as if Tojo would commit hari kari or stick his head in a noose voluntarily.

With respect to dopping A-bombs of the coast or someplace unpopulated, there was not 100% certainty it would work. Futhermore, they could not be sure the B-29's would make it without being shot down. After the tests, its not like they had enough U,P for a dozen bombs.

Nope. They took their best shot when the opportunity presented itself.

truth machine wrote"It is well-established by historians that no attack was necessary"

Bawahahaha. thanks for the laughs.

Doesn't anybody read Vonnegut any more?

Well, "Slaughterhouse Five" unfortunately has been rather tainted by Kurt's uncritical acceptance of the work of David Irving (then not yet outed as a loony Holocaust denier), which is quoted freely in the book. As more recent works have shown, Dresden *did* have quite a lot of military significance; the Allies didn't just bomb it to terrorize the Germans as Irving claimed. On the other hand, I completely agree that attacks that kill more civilians than combatants are not really justifiable. When such attacks are performed by the losing side they are declared "war crimes" and punished, but nobody punishes the winners for similar actions.

Truth machine: It's well established by historians that no attack was necessary? By which historians? This isn't my field - I'm a Latin Americanist - but I find myself wondering about that statement. Historians are generally reluctant to make pronouncements about counterfactuals, that is, about alternate histories. For any counterfactual to be well-established, it would need a very strong consensus. Does such a consensus exist among scholars of WWII Japanese history?

A few points,

1) Don't use the term moonbat if you want to engage in a civilized discourse. If you wish to fling poop at someone there are plenty of other threads for that.

2) The Japanese military hierarchy did not want to accept an unconditional surrender after 150,000-160,000 people died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no reason to assume that they would have accepted one after the USAF bombed the ocean or Mt. Fuji. However, it is entirely possible that Emperor Hirohito would not have ordered the unconditional surrender. Which would have cost the US our trump cards and prolonged the war.

3) How much Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean territory would Japan have been allowed to keep with a negotiated surrender? How much of the military hierarchy that engineered a war that killed millions would have been allowed to remain in power? The answer is of course, noone knows. Playing "what if" with history can be a fun enterprise but ultimately it is fruitless. Noone is perfect, noone has all of the facts when making decisions, and noone can accurately model the countless variables to provide an alternate "what if" world.

4) Doesn't anybody read Vonnegut any more?

I have. I also know that Slaughterhouse Five is work of fiction set in a specific historical period. I have read up on Dresden and I do know that it was a horrific bombing that killed thousands. I also know that Dresden had factories supplying the Wehrmacht. To the allies the civilians were just acceptable collateral damage to remove that manufacturing capability. It's rough to hear but... well there it is.

I don't want anyone to be killed in a war, in fact I would prefer if World War II had never happened. I would prefer it if fascism and Japanese nationalism had not arisen, had not seized territory, and had not caused the deaths of millions. But those events did occur and nothing I do or say now will retroactively prevent it. Those were hard times filled with difficult decisions that will reverberate for centuries to come. The allied leadership did the best that they could given the circumstances, which is all anyone can be expected to do.

The thing I wanted to point out is that although it is now highly unacceptable to A-bomb a city, carpet bombing, napalming civilian targets appears a-OK. That is why I think we need to look harder at the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden, and why this became an acceptable military tactic. WWII may have been a 'just' war, but not so the wars that followed.

And yes, I have read Vonnegut as a teen--God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Slaughterhouse Nine, Cats Cradle all had Dresden as a reference, and it is Vonnegut's personal involvement in the atrocity, not Irving's biased history that is the point.

Mike

Doesn't anybody read Vonnegut any more?

Not recently. I prefer to read those whose brilliant insight fills me with hope and not with suicidal despair.

In comparison the reasons why the allies' couldn't settle for a negotiated peace weight even less against the cost of an invasion or the bombs.

The conditions the Japanese wanted for peace were continued possession of Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea, no disarmament and no change in government.

I am rather glad to see I am not in the minority here as I feared I might...

As far as allowing a conditional surrender (with the terms the Japanese wanted):

That would have been stupid. The best way for the Japanese military to regroup was to offer peace to the allies without allowing an occupation, etc. In fact, WWII was a direct result of allowing a conditional surrender by Germany in WWI which allowed the German military to remain intact and regroup.

Fedaykin: Er, wasn't the German military establishment the source of the single attempt to assassinate Hitler? The old-line military establishment wasn't the source of the drive to WW2, it was the civilian leaders (unlike the Japanese situation). It's pretty common -tho not universal - to find that the generals have a better sense of the cost of war than found in the political ideologues.
==
Regarding Carlie's plaintive plea for pacifist societies:
* there apparently aren't good historical precedents among small human societies (which survived)
* the potential for our new large (100million+) societies is unknown - their institutional checks and diffuse power could be something new under the sun. Although modern command and control technologies return us to a tiny society of, um, "deciders".
* It's not clear that women as leaders would change things. Women leaders are intensely socialized into existing leadership dynamics. And any "innate biological tendencies" against physical violence in women (and where else would an appeal to such biology be popular?) is arguable. Women in leadership roles are apparently willing to do non-physical violence when perceived necessary - i.e. starve out oppositions, though I'm not recalling the details of the episode I've seen cited here.

Doesn't anybody read Vonnegut any more?

Not recently. I prefer to read those whose brilliant insight fills me with hope and not with suicidal despair.

I still read him. Xebecs, have you tried Galapagos or Bluebeard? Both are hopeful, oddly enough.

I'm a day late, but can I go on record for opposing all atrocities? Those committed by the US, those committed by our enemies, those committed by our allies. I've no doubt that when a decision is made to obliterate a city, be it Hiroshima or Dresden, the people involved feel fully justified. Just as there are entire teams of people devoted to justifying the current US administration's decision to torture, among other human rights and war abuses.

Um, Fedaykin?

In fact, WWII was a direct result of allowing a conditional surrender by Germany in WWI which allowed the German military to remain intact and regroup.

How can you consider Versailles to be a conditional surrender? The German military was left with almost *nothing*, and the reparations demanded by the Allies tanked the German economy. The only way it could have done more to destroy the German military establishment would have been to execute all of Germany's soldiers.

As for the topic of the thread, I'm going to go with Kaethe here and oppose all atrocities. Could you justify Hiroshima based on Allied projections for Operation Olympic? Maybe. That doesn't make it any less of an atrocity.

Incidentally... mgr:

The thing I wanted to point out is that although it is now highly unacceptable to A-bomb a city, carpet bombing, napalming civilian targets appears a-OK. That is why I think we need to look harder at the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden, and why this became an acceptable military tactic.

Carpet bombing and napalming civilian targets are still pretty not-OK, aren't they? I'm sure there are still some people that wish otherwise, but I was under the impression that this was the reason for all the modern spending on guided munitions and such.

"In fact, WWII was a direct result of allowing a conditional surrender by Germany in WWI which allowed the German military to remain intact and regroup."

That's almost certainly false. As Mechanohile points out. I've yet to read a historian who argues that the Versailles treaty was too soft and that's why Hitler rose to power.

"The conditions the Japanese wanted for peace were continued possession of Taiwan, Manchuria and Korea, no disarmament and no change in government."

No change in state would also be accurate.

"Anti-bomb folks, that's historical understanding staring at you, right in the face."

Which is that that with this particular issue historical understanding is supposed to be formed first by taking the official statements of historical actors at face value?

"Historians are generally reluctant to make pronouncements about counterfactuals, that is, about alternate histories. "

This statement, and others like this in this thread, bother me. Speculating about other possibilities were open to the allies if they had not emphasized the doctrine unconditional surrender, if they had sought out negotiated surrender, if they had bombed a military installation, and so on; have nothing to do with the conventional historical method. I agree. Historians generally don't engage in these, and when they do it's understood that they're not speaking as historians as much as in other contexts. Same goes for strictly ethical considerations, altough that is less respected.

However, this doesn't make both of the fields of speculation moot and without interest. It's mainly only when one country's actions are concerned that one tends to say things like that.

Second thing that bothers me: going back on these events and saying that there were no other options, no other course of actions, or that all other options lead to more death or unacceptable result isn't any less counterfactual an exercice.

It's also as much as an ethical judgment.

It also benefits from "hindsight".

What I meant to say is that this discussion couldn't have been a strictly historical one, and the frequent jabs at that are beside the point.

As for the "no invasion was necessary", this is unhistorical extrapolation but it's based in historical positions that are relatively widely held, as far as I know. What strikes me most is always how much the doctrine of unconditional surrender (which is the responsability of the allies) conditioned the events and possibilities.

I hope this makes sense.

I would like to add to the discussion a comment about the idea that evem the bombs would have done anything, if not for their Emporer's actions in declairing a surrender. It is documented, but not, at the time, commonly known, that Japan's military attempted to intercept and destroy the recording their emporer made of the surrender order. Due to a few errors in their plans and unexpected resistance from the emporers own personal guard they failed. Had they succeeded, the standing orders "prior" to that would have been upheld and the military would have sequestered the emporer from the public, "for his own protection". The prior orders? "Resist the enemy to the last man, woman or child!" Of course, without the recording, the military would have "provided" any additional "correspondence" (i.e. fake orders). That is how bad it was. The military leaders where willing to arrange things so they "couldn't" be ordered to surrender, just so that there was no way the orders would ever be given. Treason, but treason of the sort that is justified by, "our great leader isn't thinking right, so it is our duty to do what he would want done, if he was truly thinking right at the moment."

There was a show about it on the History Channel, during the annual Pearl Harbor/WWII week they run.

Numad:

I think it makes sense. When I talk about "hindsight" and "counerfactuals," I'm coming at this with my historian's hat on. Discussing the ethics of the bombing by thinking about what else we might have done is a legitimate exercise. But the discussion that's going on here is unresolvable precisely because it's an argument about alternative histories. Those positions here that are based on counterfactuals can neither be proven nor disproven, which is why I think most historians would shy away from making any definitive statements, which was what I was trying to say to Truth Machine. One of my grad school profs used to like to say, "Historians can barely predict the past - don't ask us about the future!" Well, it makes sense to me, anyway.

I lived in Japan for two years, and visited Hiroshima on a few occasions. Anyone who thinks that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, or that the Japanese (I like how the commons are blamed and made to suffer for the decisions of those in power) were "reaping" what they had "sown" needs to shut the f*ck up until they can go to the Peace Museums and actually see the results of those bombs.
These pricks are the very reason I moved out of America in the first place...

Re. Nyarlathotep

I will again refrain from responding in kind to the namecalling indulged in by this commenter but will respond to the substance of the comment. The complaint appears to be that the "commons" were subjected to suffering for the transgressions of their leaders. Unfortunately, that is the nature of war. At least in WW 2, the leaders did not get off scott free, unlike WW 1 where the Kaiser was allowed to abdicate. Hitler committed suicide, Mussolini was lynched, and Tojo was tried for war crimes and hung.

2. Re WW 1.

It should be pointed out that the event of 11/11/18 was an armistice, not a surrender. Negotiations with Germany both preceded and followed it. Not a single square centimeter of German soil (except for part of contested Alsace Lorraine) was occupied by triple entente forces. The fact that Germany was not forced to surrender unconditionally allowed Hitler to campaign on the premise that the German army had really won the war but that traitors back in
Berlin had sabotaged the victory. This was the reason that Roosevelt and Churchill demand unconditional surrender, so that no such claim could be made in the future.

"So, what is it about people that makes wars necessary?"
Seems to be human nature, I'm afraid. We've been waging wars since the beginning of recorded history, and probably long before that (There's an excellent account of what can only be called a war between two groups of chimps in one of Jane Goodall's books, for example)...

"Those positions here that are based on counterfactuals can neither be proven nor disproven, which is why I think most historians would shy away from making any definitive statements, which was what I was trying to say to Truth Machine."

I agree. And I do think Truth Machine's statement was iffy in its formulation, just as the opposite would have been. I probably should have reacted to the assertion of a consensus on what is essentially not an academic historical question, just like I probably shouldn't have used your reservations on it as a springboard for my criticism.

Criticism which, after all, is in line with the notion that this discussion is in good part counterfactual, unresolvable and several degrees more unscientific than the historical discipline itself. If anything, my problem is with when persons use the alternate history aspect to selectively damn a position while ignoring that the reverse is just as counter-factual. But I'm repeating myself.

The relation between alternate history and ethical judgment in history seems very complex to me. This certainly doesn't rob the whole question of interest, but raises many questions which I probably shouldn't go into here.

Lets just say that I sometimes have the impression that historians are too wary of alternate history and not enough of ethical judgments.

Mechanophile

My point stands. We do not bring a moral authority to having the world abandon such tactics, do we? Your focus is upon the US military, but what of nations we provide foreign aid in the form of military aid, essentially disposing of our obsolete surplus?

Mike

[..] saw fire-bombing them to hell as an acceptable loss (which was far FAR more terrible a way to die)

All, so far, the same as what would be in fire-bomb attacks that were rather common at that time...

Make your mind up, Lago. Is fire-bombing (far FAR) worse or just the same as atom-bombing?

You have a point that there are no nice ways to kill. I don't think that that precludes us from rating the alternatives by relative awfulness -- as you did yourself -- or from taking into account the relative ease by which the killing is accomplished as a factor.

Most people understand the linguistic conventions of saying "always" for "very frequently", but since it seems you are not one of those people, I will rephrase myself.

You know, "very frequently" is still inaccurate, regardless of this supposed social convention (among whom? valley girls?) of using hyperbole. Alas, I have noticed that people who do use hyperbole in conversation tend to act as though they believe it -- unless challenged.

This is a science blog. You aren't going to get any points for imprecise language in this company.

Throwing possible sexism into the mix, would wars be less frequent if women were in charge (being on an individual level less prone to physical violence)?

Ask Golda Meir and Margareth Thatcher. They know.

Women tend, for whatever reasons, to be less personally physically violent. They're socially much more violent -- just think of how cruel young girls in groups can be.

It should also be noted that nations going to war has very little to do with personal violence on the part of the politicians involved.

Fox is running a celebration of mass murder as I type...

From SLC, "Negotiations with Germany both preceded and followed it. Not a single square centimeter of German soil (except for part of contested Alsace Lorraine) was occupied by triple entente forces. The fact that Germany was not forced to surrender unconditionally allowed Hitler to campaign on the premise that the German army had really won the war but that traitors back in Berlin had sabotaged the victory."

It is amazing to see how someone can get so many things wrong in so few words.

1. 70,000 French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr. Also from the Versailles Treaty, "Within a period of two months from the coming into force of the present Treaty such of the above fortified works, fortresses and field works as are situated in territory not occupied by Allied and Associated troops shall be disarmed, and within a further period of four months they shall be dismantled. Those which are
situated in territory occupied by Allied and Associated troops shall be disarmed and dismantled within such periods as may be fixed by the Allied High Command." No occupation?

2. Alsace and Lorraine are entire provinces. Maybe SLC meant the Saar Basin.

3. Germany lost territories to France, Belgium, and Poland. As well as its colonies and interest areas in China.

4. Besides loss of colonies, the main German complaints were war reparations and assignment of guilt for the war, both of which they considered unjust.

As to people who believe that Germany was not disarmed, here is from the Versailles Treaty:

"By a date which must not be later than March 31, 1920, the German Army must not comprise more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry.

After that date the total number of effectives in the Army of the States constituting Germany must not exceed one hundred thousand men, including officers and establishments of depots. The Army shall be devoted exclusively to the
maintenance of order within the territory and to the control of the frontiers.

The total effective strength of officers, including the personnel of staffs, whatever their composition, must not exceed four thousand."

That seems rather similar to what happened to Japan after WWII. In addition, the Rhineland was completely demilitarized. There were strict rules about the amount and types of armaments the German army could have as well as a prohibition on importing arms.

Checking the facts first will help you avoid making wild assertions.

Many of the scientists involved in the manhattan prject (including Oppneheimer) were opposed to dropping the bombs on civilians. They also reasilzed that there were other options (eg a "demonstration" using one of the bombs)

I would suspect that the many of the people who write here that there were "no other options" to dropping the a-bombs on Japan also think there was "no other options" to invading Iraq.

There are always other options if one makes the effort to think a little bit.

Estas imágenes muestran la bajeza de la mente humana que no mide consecuencias por un falso ideal que además de no aportar en nada, destruye vidas de inocentes que solo tuvieron una oportunidad de vivir, terminando con sus vidas en la peor de las tragedias humanas.
No existe ningún país en el mundo que no haya izado su bandera al tope del mástil sin derramar sangre inocente.
La verdadera independencia de un grupo humano es aquella que no depende de una nación ensangrentada. Todos somos víctimas del sicopatismo extremo de las mentes distorsionadas de los gobernantes que valoran un territorio por sobre el verdadero valor de una vida humana.
Los gobernantes de este mundo es la escoria en el universo y lo seguirá siendo hasta que la tierra se los trague y a su tecnología destructora para comenzar de nuevo sin ambiciones de poder ni de instintos bajos que no dejan avanzar en la verdadera evolución de una especie que depende de los más locos del gran manicomnio que tiene el poder bélico en cada nación.
Lo que sucedió en Hiroshima y Nagasaki son los mayores ejemplos de la distorsión mental y la bajeza humana.
Nadie merece ser asesinado por tiranos enfermos, la vida tiene su curso y hay que respetarla.
Con cariño a mis hermanos orientales, una sola familia.

Christian Gutiérrez
Chile

Estas imágenes muestran la bajeza de la mente humana que no mide consecuencias por un falso ideal que además de no aportar en nada, destruye vidas de inocentes que solo tuvieron una oportunidad de vivir, terminando con sus vidas en la peor de las tragedias humanas.
No existe ningún país en el mundo que no haya izado su bandera al tope del mástil sin derramar sangre inocente.
La verdadera independencia de un grupo humano es aquella que no depende de una nación ensangrentada. Todos somos víctimas del sicopatismo extremo de las mentes distorsionadas de los gobernantes que valoran un territorio por sobre el verdadero valor de una vida humana.
Los gobernantes de este mundo es la escoria en el universo y lo seguirá siendo hasta que la tierra se los trague y a su tecnología destructora para comenzar de nuevo sin ambiciones de poder ni de instintos bajos que no dejan avanzar en la verdadera evolución de una especie que depende de los más locos del gran manicomnio que tiene el poder bélico en cada nación.
Lo que sucedió en Hiroshima y Nagasaki son los mayores ejemplos de la distorsión mental y la bajeza humana.
Nadie merece ser asesinado por tiranos enfermos, la vida tiene su curso y hay que respetarla.
Con cariño a mis hermanos orientales, una sola familia.

Christian Gutiérrez
Chile