Alli has a very nice post on the dropping of the Bomb on Japan. Of course the usual trolls showed up to claim that it was all unnecessary, Truman...blah blah blah.
Truman will not be treated kindly by history. He continued the disastrous policies of FDR by kissing Stalin's hairy behind. He gave away Eastern Europe. He gave us the Marshall plan, Korea, etc. etc. etc., as the King of Siam would say.
My Grandfather was in the Navy in WWII. After boot camp he was sent for infantry training. He was issued Marine gear. He was to be part of the invasion force for the assault on fortress Japan. He was thankful Truman dropped the "Big One".
There are plenty of revisionists who claim that it was the US' fault that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. These are the same people that think we had it coming on 9/11. These same intellects also believe that Japan was going to surrender peacefully if we would just wait, no more soldiers, sailors, or marines needed to die. I guess that is why the Japanese were still fighting in the Philippines, in China, on the Ryukyu Islands, in Southeast Asia? Their everlasting commitment to surrendering to the US was patently obvious, that is why it took TWO fucking bombs to get them to capitulate!
The Emperor wanted to quit. Tojo and his junta had no interest in surrender. To surrender was the greatest dishonor according to the Bushido code. The Americans who surrendered on Makin Island early in the war were beheaded, because they were unworthy of respectful treatment. The prisoners were beheaded in Bushido tradition on Kwajalein at the order of Vice Admiral Abe to Lt. Commander Hisakichi Naiki. The Japanese saw no problem with treating our POWs as lower than whale turds, that is how the Japanese viewed them -- less than men and dishonored.
It is clear that those in control of Japan intended to fight to the death in defense of the home islands. Would there be a million casualties? Who knows, but if you extrapolate the numbers from Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the estimate could be accurate. No amount of mining of the harbors, or embargoes would have worked. The island of Japan had been cut of from many of its sources of supply for months (that very lack of resources was the primary cause of Japan's pan-Asian philosophy that led to the war). Similar "surrounding" of Okinawa, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Yap had little or no effect. We only removed the stiff Japanese resistance by force. The United States forces were surrounded, outnumbered and doomed to defeat at Wake Island and at Midway, but they did not surrender without a fight either!
It is Ok to disagree with Alli's position, but to attack without facts makes the trolls like jb and others the uneducated fools they appear to be.
Yeah, Alli, I know you do not need me to defend you. You have responded eloquently and effectively to these nitwits, but I had to get in my two cents, and did not think it right to take up your entire blog with this response. Thanks in advance for your indulgence.
4 comments:
I don't know how Truman will be treated by historians a couple of hundred years from now but I suspect more kindly than you might think. I took a degree in history some twenty years ago and wa sickened by the neo historian professors who tried to put a leftist slant on everything from the American revolution to Vietnam.
Truman was not treated kindly!
But that said, I have hopes that future historians will be able to look at history without applying their own moral standards. That is to say use some objectivity. I believe that Truman knew full well that anything but an unconditional surrender by Japan would lead to another war with Japan. In the history of wars there has been few that were settled with a conditional truce that did not re-ignite within a generation or two. Germany and WW I and WW II is a perfect example as wellas the hundreds of years of warfare between the Brittis and Fench which drew other countries inas allies, sometimes with one and sometimes with the others. Even today there is not a lot of love lost between Great Brittian and France.
All of this rambling leads to what I should have said to begin with. If I had of been Truman I would not have given a warning. Tokyo would have been gone as well as all of the other major cities. Just shows that Truman was smarter than I am.
I agree Guy. My point was Truman really screwed the pooch by agreeing to let the USSR run all over Eastern Europe. In hindsight his move to allow the Soviets to attack Manchuria also was a bad idea.
Later, I think Truman realized his mistake and went after the Commies in Greece and he did the right thing in Korea. Little do we know how close we came to helping the French in Indochina, only the Frogs said they would rather lose the Empire than have Americans be in charge of French troops and be able to say we saved their ass again.
The "Bomb" was the right thing to do, I think I agree that I would have targeted what was left of Tokyo.
The "Bomb" apologists should note that we killed far more people in our fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, not to mention what the British and Americans did to Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg.
Alli, I hope I did not insult you! I hope you are refering to jb and the other asshats?
Harry stepped in todeep dodo as soon as he took office. According to what I can gather he was kept out of the loop and inherited the agreements that FDR and Churchill had made with Uncle Joe.Agree that they were dicked up and agree that FDR was closer to being a socialist than he was a libertarian. Some of the military leaders including Marshall and of course Patton pretty well had Stalin and the soviet bear pegged but there wasn't much they could do about it. Truman did show some balls later on when he canned MacAuthor-a controversial subject but I have to back Truman on it. Hell this could be a post but would be so long no one would read it.
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