[Vision2020] Subject change to "Was it Necessary to Use the Atomic Bombs on Japan?" Former title Presidential Rankings

[Ted Moffett]

Unless I missed it, this thread did not address the problematic timing of
the Nagasaki atomic bombing, nor answer why there was no "demonstration"
atom bomb first dropped where it would minimize civilian casualties.  And
there are well researched arguments questioning the need to use nuclear
weapons at all against Japan, explored by many scholars, including Gar
Alperovitz, from his book,  THE DECISION TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB And the
Architecture of an American Myth:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE2DA143CF933A05754C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0803-26.htm

Gar Alperovitz comments below from URL immediately above:

"What did the U.S. military think? Here there is also dispute. We actually
know very little about the views of the military at the time. However, after
the war many–indeed, most–of the top World War II Generals and Admirals
involved criticized the decision. One of the most famous was General
Eisenhower, who repeatedly stated that he urged the bomb not be used: “[I]t
wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” The well-known “hawk,”
General Curtis LeMay, publicly declared that the war would have been over in
two weeks, and that the atomic bomb had nothing to do with bringing about
surrender. President Truman’s friend and Chief of Staff, five star Admiral
William D. Leahy was deeply angered: The “use of this barbarous weapon at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against
Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. . . [I]n
being the first to use it, we . . . adopted an ethical standard common to
the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”
-------------------
Continuing my comments...

The Nagasaki bombing is especially problematic for those justifying use of
nuclear weapons on Japan because it was only three days after Hiroshima.
Consider that nuclear weapons were a very new type of weapon, the effects of
which were incomprehensible to many.  There is evidence that the leaders of
Japan did not have sufficient time to grasp the full reality of what
happened at Hiroshima and make a decision regarding rapid surrender, when
Nagasaki was atom bombed three days later.  The argument that huge loses in
lives would occur or that Japan could gain an advantage in the war when
their defeat at this point was inevitable, if waiting longer before using
more nuclear weapons on mostly civilian targets (I reject the statement that
these civilians started WWII.  They did not), to allow more time for Japan's
leadership to surrender, is questionable.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear blasts involved different nuclear weapon
designs.  It is difficult to determine the exact decision making involved in
the top secret effort to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in WWII.  But it
is possible there was a push to use these designs on real world war targets,
rather than in experimental tests, quickly before Japan had time to
surrender.  Also, the main US foreign policy enemy at this point in time,
when Japan and Germany were certainly facing defeat, were the Russians.  The
use of the atom bomb on Japan demonstrated to the Russians, as was pointed
out in this thread, US military might and will.

Gar Alperovitz comments on this issue:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0803-26.htm

"Hasegawa believes the assurances were taken out of the Potsdam Proclamation
precisely because American leaders wanted to have the warning rejected so as
to justify the bombing–and, further, that they saw the bomb as a way to end
the war before Russia could join the fighting. There is other evidence
suggesting that policy makers, especially Secretary of State Byrnes, wanted
to use the bomb to “make the Russians more manageable in Europe”--as he told
one scientist."
---------------------

Design of Hiroshima atom bomb:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon

Design of Nagasaki atom bomb:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Implosion_Nuclear_weapon.svg

Many of the arguments to justify the Hiroshima atom bombing are much weaker
when applied to the Nagasaki atom bombing of tens of thousands of civilians
occurring only three days later.

Ted Moffett
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