US air strikes kill 140 civilians in Afghanistan, including 93 children

The US did not wait to find out if one bomb would have been enough - the two bombs, checking out two different designs (the Hiroshima was simpler and more guaranteed, the Nagasaki bomb was a bit more sophisticated), were dropped within 72 hours of each other, the Nagasaki bomb being dropped before the Japanese had even figured out what had happened to Hiroshima, let alone had time to react (reliable reports and estimates of the damage were just beginning to reach Tokyo on August 8, Nagasaki was August 9).

But the main piece of evidence revealing the US goal - probably: demonstrating the bomb to Russia, Truman's obsession - is the most obvious: the US kept the bomb a secret. Why?

Japan's offers of negotiations for surrender had been refused, and instead ultimatums containing completely unrealistic (as far as anyone knew) threats had been issued without possibility of compromise.

Negotiated surrender would of course have forestalled a bloody invasion. And the terms of surrender available from a Japanese government aware of the Bomb might have been quite generous, with persuasively A-bombing a demonstration target - even a city - available as a last resort should the generals prove stubborn. So the presentation of the situation as a choice between full scale invasion and A-bombing by surprise a major city full of people was clearly a deliberate lie.

Just as the physical circumstances and historical facts surrounding the US invasion of Afghanistan undermine the credibility of the publicly acknowledged motive. The Taliban was prevented from negotiating, even through its established channels in Houston or Saudi Arabia.

 

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very awful

 

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Tell that to the families of the soldiers who died at Iwo Jima in 1945.

Who is to say it was demolished and humiliated in 1944? And you seem to overlook the fact that the point of the war, for the US, was to remove that govt. from Japan and completely subvert that nation to our will, so that it could not rise again and plunder the Pacific.

Ignorance or a lie? It made a surrender demand that was turned down. You know that, right?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe because we didn't want the Soviets to build one?

They were losing. Of course they would negotiate to try to keep power. And the US, rightfully, said no, because it did not want that govt. to survive the war. This is a basic point. Why it escapes you is beyond me. Unless, you think fascism should have been left in place?

Really? The invasion was planned, Ice. Units were moving into place.

What "historical facts" are those? Your bullshit interpretations about pipelines?

Elsewhere, I am still waiting for you to explain what crime the bombing broke, so we can all understand how it was a war crime? Can you EVER answer a direct question?

 

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The Nagasaki bomb was dropped less than 72 hours after Hiroshima, less than 24 hours after the first reliable reports of what had happened to Hiroshima reached Tokyo.

In the six months or so we were refusing to negotiate with Japan?

If we wanted to keep the Soviets from knowing about the bomb, secret negotiations with Japan would have had a better chance of that than blowing up a major city.

The US did not say no to them keeping power. The US said no to any negotiations whatsoever, on any terms, extending the war by months (at significant cost in US lives and money), and then made what at the time - deliberately and with calculation - appeared to be unrealistic threats and demands, carefully concealing their validity.

The US knew it had the bomb. The US knew that the rail lines in Japan had been taken out, and Japan was going to have trouble surviving the coming winter, let alone defending itself. There was going to be no horrible bloody invasion, and the US side knew it.

Not yours, of course, unless you hit on something real by chance.

One of the aspects of Hiroshima was that the bomb was targeted so as to destroy the major civilian hospital and medical facilities of the city, as well as several children's schools and other such buildings. The bridge chosen as the aiming point was 800 feet from the big hospital, which already put that hospital in the primary blast zone, and the bomb drifted 800 feet on its way down, exploding directly over it. The bombing was set for the middle of the day, and that coupled with the total lack of warning and deliberately disguised mission meant that the maximum number of children, doctors, patients, etc, would be killed. 90% of the doctors in Hiroshima were killed by the initial blast.

A perusal of this: http://www.dannen.com/decision/int-law.html will provide anyone actually interested with an idea of the variety of options available to a prosecuting tribunal, in the case of Hiroshima.

 

Are you denying, then, that the US offered unconditional surrender and that the Japanese refused?

You keep a weapon's capabilities secret until such time as you start to use it, and even then you don't let everyone behind the curtain. I'm sorry this basic concept eludes you.

This is your opinion, devoid of fact, and as such, I give it little or no time.

Bullshit. Seriously. Read some fucking history. The plans for the invasion were ready and the units moving into place. Iwo Jima was the last stepping stone.

Then fuck off and don't talk to me. I tire of trying to have a conversation in which you are deliberately dishonest all under some guise of, what? I don't know. Conversations have questions and answers. But you never answer. I think it's because you're full of shit. I asked you to define atrocity -- after you threw that word around -- a few pages ago. We get nothing. I ask you a DIRECT question here twice. Still, no answers. I call that cowardice and intentional game-playing.

Proof please?

Oh, please what a modern interpretation. It also was probably one of the easiest things to pick out through the bombing site. Seriously, where do you cook up this bullshit?

Again, your head is way up your ass.

The mission was secret, hence its deliberate disguise.

And since when does the American military "warn" its enemies it's about to bomb them? Massive bombing of civilian targets -- at all times of day -- occurred throughout the war. The fact is you are doing what you always do. Seizing on a real fact -- when the bomb was dropped -- and making leaps to foolish conclusions that are groundless and purely the creation of your own warped mind.

Oh, wait you gave us this impressive link with no direct comment, right? Follow the link? It's trash. More than half what is listed is post-WW2. All the priors are non-relevant, with the exception of the non-binding air agreement. So again, we get a flimsy case of your biased whimsy built on little or more than a conclusion in search of antecedents.

 

I am denying that the Japanese had time to evaluate and react to Hiroshima before Nagasaki.

It doesn't apply to the atomic bomb.

The threat of the bomb might have ended the war. The knowledge of the bomb would not have prevented its employment or defended against its use. So why the secrecy, the refusal to negotiate with the bomb in reserve?

And the people engaged in those maneuvers, refusing to negotiate the while, knew they had a bomb that would end the war. They also knew that Japan was on the point of collapse, bomb or no bomb.

When it's going to target the civilians, schools, and hospitals of a major city, using a terrible new weapon no one has ever seen the like of or can defend against, ostensibly (this was the presented reason!) as a means of terrorizing the central government into surrender, might be a reasonable first time.

 

Once again we're arguing here against fanatical WCBW ideology- always a lop-sided affair. Iceaura, you have commendable patience.

Countezero and Baron Max are heavily conditioned to cling to the We Can't Be Wrong doctrine in terms of the most fateful moral decisions in our nation's recent history. They seem unprepared to objectively consider episodes of blind and morally-indefensible collective rage, that are clear and indelible parts of US history. So repressed are any suspicions of great moral failure in uses of US force, that they are seen to cringe at any evidence that we've ever made bad choices about killing wholesale in our collective anger.

Whether discussing US revenge attacks in the wake of Japanese ruthlessness (in battle, and atrocities upon civilians) or in discussing our reckless and self-defeating lashing-out after 9-11- it is unacceptable for these two (and still for a majority of USAmericans) to frankly consider this reality: Bloodthirsty reactions to the crimes of other actors have been as avoidable as they have been inexcusable.

We have been wrong in the USA, and we're still prone to being wrong about justifiable wholesale deadly force. Our world leadership is increasingly untenable, and is likely to invite further provocation and new atrocities, for as long as our society persists in dogged denial of this bitter, humbling truth.

We must fight the WCBW virus wherever we find it. It's not merely the proverbial "Good Fight". This is the core of the fight for the survival of the USA and, for the survival of her highest ideals as an attribute of our country. I suspect, and I hope that those most infected with the WCBW virus are often thinking, and re-evaluating their world-views considerably more than they're letting on.

I also firmly believe that the battlefield of ideas precedes (even in such seemingly-trivial arenas as this), and can even pre-empt future battles and reprisals in the physical world. It takes a lot of patience, but it's important to do this.

 

Nope, that's not it, Hype. It's arguments about past history using present ethics and morality as the only guide to right n' wrong.

Times have changed, Hype, and so has the ideals of ethics and morality and war and economics and politics and...... It's all changed.

We can't continually view the past with the ever-critical eyes with 20/20 vision and the present system of ideals and morality.

If we do that, Hype, as you and others are doing here ....then human history is going to be a shit-hole of horrors and we'll all have to admit to being the offspring of horrid, vicious creatures of the past. (Probably except for you, Hype, I'm sure your ancestors were the epitome of idealism and morality)

Baron Max

 

I claim no ancestral exceptionalism. We are all the culmination thus far of a previously more-aggressive species, that has been steadily evolving beyond the Law of the Jungle. But no radical new morality or rationality has emerged in the last few centuries. The USA does not deserve (and will not receive) a moral "pass" because the "rules have changed". Consistent recognition of deranged vigilante "justice" at any scale (and the folly thereof) is already much older than the USA.

Nice WCBW squirm- but no cigar.

 

Ha, ...and yet we have recieved exactly that for our efforts during World War I and World War II as well as the Korean War.

.....except for you, Hype. You want to drag the USA down with this kind of bullshit and 20/20 hindsight/armchair quarterbacking of history.

Why do you hate the USA so much, Hype? I know some radical, fundamentalist Muslims who don't hate the USA as much as you. Why?

Baron Max

 

I've expressed no hatred for the USA. It's my country, I love it deeply, and I want for her to prosper. If we devolve into caveman misconceptions and obsolescence of threat response, I know that we can't and won't prosper nor endure. To be dogmatically uncritical of whom and what we love is a much more shallow affection.

That I criticize my own country more than others is also part of my firm belief that we must become the positive change that we wish to see in the world.

That you're resorting again to ad-hominem is another lame WCBW evasion.

 

You just cannot see that murdering millions of innocents is wrong eh?

 

I guess that's why they say 'war is hell'.

I've met many former Japanese soldiers who now claim that they are glad for what the US did, to rid the world of that japanese government. I've also met many former German soldiers who've made the same claims about the US ridding the world of that German government. They are extremely interesting people to speak with.

I believe that the US killed as many civilian people in the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany [read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse 5"] as they did in the A-bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But the US was not alone in killing civilian people. Germany reportedly killed some 10,000,000 civilians, and Japan likewise [read the 'Rape of Nanking']. War is hell, and the US knew not what kind of hell it was being dragged into.

I've met and spoken with many former US soldiers who had received orders and were on their way to forward bases for the land invasion of the main Japanese islands, when they received word of the A-bombings and the end of the war. To a man, they were elated, and believed that the bombings almost certainly saved their lives, which would have been at extremely high risk had the main invasion taken place. The US had placed orders for tens of thousands of body-bags for that invasion. To a man, every one of those US soldiers who was preparing to invade Japan has told me that they were glad that the bombings ended the war. Many Japanese soldiers have expressed the same sentiments to me, as the expected invasion [had it taken place] would likely have killed far more Japanese than Americans, and certainly more civilians would have been killed in such an invasion than were killed in those last two bombings. War is hell, and certainly not fair.

For my part, I was not even born until many years after that war ended.

 

We haven't got to the "right and wrong" stage yet - incredibly enough, we're still arguing over the basic facts.

We still have people saying that we had to invade and destroy Afghanistan immediately after 9/11 because we were at war with Al Qaida, for example. Or that the only choices facing Truman were a horrible bloody invasion of Japan at the cost of millions of lives and dropping the atomic bomb by surprise on two major cities within three days.

But if you want to bring in "right and wrong", notice that the principals involved in those decisions lied about them, even arranged in advance to lie about them, before and afterwards. That's a clue.

 

So, his options were to allow a tyrannical regime to remain in place after the war? Those were the terms being floated by the Empire (the same empire that attacked the USA).

I just love how pretentious debutants sit here on the perch of history, some 64 years later, judging people for making decisions without the added benefit of 60+ years of hindsight that we now have the advantage of using. Can any of you provide any evidence that shows that the authoritative judgments of the Generals & Admirals as to the cost of NOT dropping the a-bomb were somehow wrong? While I know that they should have been prescient and had the ability to foresee that--one day--more than half a century later people would scoff at the distasteful nature of their decisions (while taking advantage of the freedoms that those same decisions provided), the odd fact remains that they didn't have the perspective we have now. I've yet to see any of you provide anything beyond your own myopic judgment that there was any better, and politically & militarily acceptable, alternative to dropping the a-bomb and ending the war.

From Downfall by Richard B. Frank vis a vis Wikipedia:

Truman, in his fucking memoirs (Any of you read them?), states that the options were clear and that his biggest fear was the fact that Americans were so tired of war that the population of the US might revolt against the arrival of upwards of a million body bags over the invasion of Japan. At no point was any of the leadership of the time even remotely aware of some grandiose leftist option of encircling the island of Japan until it collapsed. This is nation who's survival was perceived as pernicious as Nazi Germany and who's continued existence would not only serve as an insult to those who died, but who's destruction and surrender was required by the treaties that bound the USA, UK and USSR in alliance at the time. The intelligence of the time showed that the Japanese people were prepared to fight in the streets until Hirohito announced over the radio that it was time to end the war. I dare ANY of you to show otherwise, or provide with even the smallest shred of evidence that there were other options available to them (as in, something acceptable to the men making the decisions and the population who made the sacrifices).

So, Truman maintaining the integrity of the most secret wartime project from our enemies--which enemies were patently hell-bent on destroying every one of our allies--was somehow "lying" about them. Yeah, how terrible. Can you elaborate on how Truman "lied" beyond maintaining the security of the nation during the a-bomb development period? Or is this just pissing from a Soviet sympathizing leftist?

~String

 

There were no negotiations for the Empire to "float" terms in. Negotiations had been refused unilaterally by the US, as soon as the Bomb was reported to be a sure thing.

All we know about what might have been possible in negotiations is that 1) the final terms of surrender, after the Bomb, were not that much different from the rumored Japanese proposals - the emperor remained as nominal head of state, for example - and 2) the knowledge of the Bomb was sufficient to force surrender - Japan had already suffered equivalent bombing damage and casualties without surrendering, from conventional weaponry, so it wasn't the scale of the destruction that swung them.

We also know some of the cost that might have been avoided - the extra months of war were not cheap, in money or in US lives.

Gee, where to turn - -

I know:

Now, do you really believe that Truman was unaware of the potential use of the Bomb in the negotiations offered by Japan, or the effect on Japanese reaction of concealing the existence of the Bomb when delivering the Potsdam ultimatums, or the precarious situation Japan was in now that they couldn't ship food or fuel between cities, and so forth?

You think Truman was a fucking moron who hadn't even been paying attention to his own advisers or generals , and was unaware of even the most obvious of his options?

How gullible are the apologists for Hiroshima?

And what about Nagasaki - a rush job, shoehorned into a break in the weather on a secondary target as soon as possible?

 

They had tıme enough to say no to the Amerıcan offer of surrender.

Why not?

How can the threat of a weapon that has never been used help end the war? Even its makers were not sure what ıt would do.

İt was a new an untrıed weapon, developed ın secret. The fact secrets about ıt were kept seems to perplex you and speak to your ınchoate longıngs for conspıracy. İt doesnt to others so move on.

Lets say I accept thıs as true. SO what? we were ın ıt to wın the way. you dont negotıate when you are about to wın. what about thıs ıs so dıffıcult for you grasp?

Poınt of collapse and collapse are two dıfferent thıngs. İ also thınk you over estımate what amerıcans knew ın 1945 wıth no satellıtes, few spıes and whatnot. Not to mentıon the Japanese -- on the poınt of collapse -- just bloodıed our nose at ıwo jıma worse than any other fıght. so they were stıll very dangerous and had more men and materıal stored ın japan than at ıwo jıma. ı dont blame the commanders for not wantıng to ınvade.

So ın other words, you have NO precedent for your bullshıt suggestıon then? Okay. Fıle ıt under bullshıt, antı-amerıcan revısıonısm then.

 

No shit, Sherlock. The overtures by the Empire were refused by the USA because every single overture came with "restrictions". Had the Empire actually said, "Okay, please tell the Americans we are ready to surrender, totally..." They would have been listened to. Just as importantly, the USA had been broadcasting into Japan the message that total destruction would come unless they unconditionally surrendered. No negotiations. No restrictions.

Why would this be? Oh, I don't know, perhaps it was the attack at Pearl Harbor and their alliance with Germany and Italy through the whole war. The American public wanted a quick victory, obviously one with as few soldiers as dead as possible, but nothing short of total surrender by the Empire was acceptable. The Japanese had nearly five years to surrender. The USA made that possibility obvious from day one when it started leafleting Japan that total destruction was coming unless they surrendered.

Even without the Nukes, total surrender, fire bombing of cities and the annihilation of their government was going to happen. In one scenario millions of soldiers and thousands of bombers would be used. In the other, two nukes were dropped. In case of the a-bomb, the Japanese and Americans got the better end of the deal since it avoided an all-out invasion and stree-to-street fighting that would have allowed thousands, if not millions, to die of starvation in the winter until the fighting ended.

And how do we know the fighting would have continued? Simple: judge the Japanese style of fighting on Okinawa, Iwo Jima and other islands while studying (retrospectively) what the Japanese government was preparing to make the impending American invasion as bloody as possible.

Can you substantiate this with anything?

Nope. Wrong. The Japanese wanted far more than that. They wanted the Emperor to remain a deity-like figure within the Empire and for the government to continue. The USA wouldn't hear of it. While the US, at MacArthur's behest did allow Hirohito to keep his crown, he was to lose every shred of power, the US insisted that he jettison all godlike authority within the state religion, be seen standing next to MacArthur to show his humanity (and subsequently be humiliated as a sign of the total American victory), and begin walking amongst his people to prove to them he was a human.

Bullshit. And I'd like to see you prove this. For most people the belief that a single "small" bomb could contain such power was beyond belief and I'd like to see you provide a single source showing that the Japanese would have believed such overtures.

Yes, it was the belief that the USA had, in fact, possessed multiple numbers of said bombs and was prepared to nuke the entire Empire (which was bluff on our part, and one not called by Japan,. thus the need for secrecy).

What? You're clueless and obviously totally unread on anything to do with the war in the Pacific. I'd like to continue this discussion when you actually figure out what you're talking about, rather than offer more leftist "hate America" ideas that--heretofore--have been unsupported by a single piece of evidence.

Nope. I think that the Americans' constant leafleting and radio broadcasts into the Empire that total destruction was at hand unless they unconditionally surrendered was warning enough. They were given ample time and opportunity to surrender.

Obviously a lot less gullible than people like you who haven't sited any authoritative work to support their argument, have continued in a debate with little actual knowledge of the war, and taken the typical leftist mantra of "Hate/Blame America first".

Right. Because upwards of five years of war against the USA and constant demands for unconditional surrender or suffer total destruction from the sky via leafleting and radio broadcasts weren't warning enough.

We should have dropped roses and begged for their surrender, and then surrendered ourselves to the Soviets.

~String

 

That ıs a fıne poınt that ıs often overlooked: That ıs, the two nukes, horrıble as they were, probably, ın the end, spared more Japanese lıves. The death toll from an ınvasıon would have been staggerıng.

 

The goal was nothing less than unconditional surrender, not wounding them so they could go back and try again.