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koan;1400636 wrote: William D. Leahy disagrees with you, gmc. He was in a position to know better.

William D. Leahy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leahy was recalled to active duty as the personal Chief of Staff to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 and served in that position throughout World War II, and continued under President Harry S. Truman until finally retiring in 1949. From 1942 until retiring in 1949 he was the highest ranking member of the U.S. military, taking orders only from the President.

....

After the bomb was tested, Leahy was strongly opposed to its use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In his memoir, he wrote:

"Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but he was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my opinion that 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 because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons... My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and that wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

After mediating between the United States Navy and the Government of Puerto Rico over the involuntary transfer of part of the islands of Vieques and Culebra to naval authorities, Leahy resigned in March 1949 and the following year published his war memoirs, I Was There.

So... then there's that.


I can cite umpteen sources that disagree with him his position does not make him right on the matter. Clearly his opinion was ignored on the matter at the time. Many also after the event criticised the bombing of civilians, in ww2 despite having supported it during the war churchill was one of those despite having given the actual order to carry out the attacks. The way bomber harris and bomber command was vilified after the war was an injustice. Bomber command - like the American equivalent suffered the highest casualty rate of any of the fighting services although for some reason americans like to pretend they only attacked military targets niot civilians.

posted by spot

A simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had an Axis nation (that is, either Japan or Germany) been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on an Allied city and then gone on to lose the war, the users of the bomb would have been prosecuted for a war crime?




Daft question imo. Hitler - as I am sure you are aware rained ballistic missiles down on london, if they had had a nuclear weapon not only would they have used it they would probably have won the war. He also came pretty damn close to actually having one. Had both sides had nuclear weapons europe would be a wateland still.

spot;1400733 wrote: A simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had an Axis nation (that is, either Japan or Germany) been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on an Allied city and then gone on to lose the war, the users of the bomb would have been prosecuted for a war crime?Considering it would have killed civilians in mass, yes.

Another simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had any nation other than the United States been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on a city, spot would not have started a thread on it, and certainly not using the phrasing he did?

Accountable;1400739 wrote: Another simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had any nation other than the United States been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on a city, spot would not have started a thread on it, and certainly not using the phrasing he did?


hahaha!

spot;1400735 wrote: And there was me thinking we were discussing the ethics involved.


Ethics and nuclear weapons?

Reminds me of a line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

"Rules?!?! In a knife fight?"

Ethics are relative, dontchaknow?

Seriously, of course it was bad thing. Everyone knows it was a bad thing. You seem to be the only one wanting to argue whether it was a bad thing or not. By the time it happened though, so many terrible things had happened, that it seemed like just another day in the park for most people.

The Twentieth Century was 100 years of bad things happening.

Time to move on and try to make THIS century a better one.

Get over it.

A simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had an Axis nation (that is, either Japan or Germany) been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on an Allied city and then gone on to lose the war, the users of the bomb would have been prosecuted for a war crime?


I'm not sure what your point is here. The whole question of the validity of war crimes trials when half the laws were invented after the offences were committed is a vexed one anyway. I think we are in bad or worse territory again: would it have been better to have let people responsible for the deliberate murder of millions simply go? Or just shot them out of hand? The Nurembourg and equivalent Japanese trials did at least see the beginnings of modern International Laws on the matter, reflecting the Geneva Convention, which are being applied again now in cases from Serbia to the Sudan. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it seems to me like a faltering step in the right direction.

Or are you saying that because the Axis would have been prosecuted the Allies should have been? Probably.

I disagree. The Japanese fought a war of expansion very successfully for a couple of decades and committed horrible atrocities along the way as a matter of course because they thought they could get away with it - largely because they believed that the Emperor gave them a unique connection with the Divine as a direct descendent of the Sun Goddess, which rendered them racially superior to all other races. Not all believed that, but the ruling faction did. Or in other words - they started it.

The general leading the bombing campaign stated that the war would have been over in two weeks. He clearly stated that the bombs were not necessary. Japan had been trying to negotiate an end and the one condition that prevented a deal was dropped from US demands after they nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There has been no good summary of events in this thread yet. The best summary I've found is here:

Was Hiroshima Necessary?

Hmm. I'd call that partial. It is claimed that the Japanese were seeking peace from early June and perhaps April or May. Three, four or five months. And in all that time they couldn't make anyone understand they were trying to surrender? That not just the Americans, but the Soviets, the Swedes, the Swiss, the South Americans, the Papacy, none of them heard a thing? That they were trying to surrender but only got the message out after the second bomb (and quick enough at that point?) That there was not a single wireless transmitter available in the whole of Japan for them to transmit a surrender message in clear for the world's radios to pick up?

And this from a nation whose fighting ethos said any trick against the enemy was acceptable? That had feigned surrender at unit level in the past to pull opponents out of cover, and then shot them?

Against Allied nations which already knew one of the main reasons the war had kicked off was because the Allies had not gone into Germany at the end of WW1 and shown them they were beaten?

You're ignoring the part where the guy leading the bombing campaign said the war would be over in two weeks.

... they were mostly worried there wouldn't be enough left of Japan to make a good show of the atomic bombs.

They aborted so many bombings that LeMay started flying lead plane on missions to reduce the aborts to nil. LeMay is the one who said the nukes weren't needed.

It's not me you're disputing, it's the leaders of your country and army.

Clodhopper already answered the question you've asked four times now. I don't understand this insistence you and spot have over repeating yourselves like this, are you under the impression the rest of the forum is too stupid to have read it the first time?

Curtis LeMay was a key player in the USAAF contribution of precision daylight bombing (the US had a very good bombsight and the RAF didn't) and saw how the RAF worked. When he was posted to the Pacific he was trying to force a Japanese surrender without the need for invasion, and began the firebombing campaign on the RAF model to try and force that result. My understanding is that he believed he had pretty much done that, and when he says the atomic bombs had no effect on the end of the war, it is because he believed his airforce had already done the job.

I'm insisting that he was in a position to know.

The war was over. Russia was going to secure whatever was left of Japan and that wouldn't have created the current version of the end of WW11 that most N. Americans are proud of.

So you seriously suggest that the president of the United States Of America knows better what to do in a military situation than his military advisers and leaders? Are we to stop stating facts because it's more convenient for people to do so? If not his military advisers, then who do you think decided for the president that he should drop the nukes? What happens if we let corporations and wealthy investors rewrite history for us?

Don't expect me to stop reminding people of what facts exist. As stated in lots of other arguments, you can erase history from your mind but you can't erase what actually happened.

Curtis LeMay thinks the atomic bombs get credit for ending the war when his boys had done the job. He is entitled to his opinion, but looking from this distance we can see that the Japanese did not surrender after his firebombing of Tokyo - a conventional raid that killed more people and did more damage than either of the bombs. They did, however surrender sharpish after the second atomic bomb. These undisputable facts do suggest that LeMays's comment is driven more by a desire to claim credit for ending the war than anything else, and so using him in an argument to say the atomic bombs were unnecessary seems flawed to me.

Of course they surrendered after the bombs were dropped. That doesn't mean they weren't already done for. There was a rush to get the bomb experiments in before they couldn't justify it.

Again, if the president wasn't listening to his military advisors... who was he listening to? You can't go back and justify it later. It has to be based on the reasoning available to him at the time. And in war, who else do you listen to than your military advisers? And, all of them. All of them said it wasn't necessary. So who's left? Seems like the politicians and businessman knew better.

Perhaps it was a Fox News "public opinion poll"

You do not stop in a war because the enemy are done for, you stop when the enemy surrender. It is widely accepted the Germans were done for when the US entered the War, but it took several years fighting to convince them of that.

koan;1400772 wrote: So you seriously suggest that the president of the United States Of America knows better what to do in a military situation than his military advisers and leaders? Are we to stop stating facts because it's more convenient for people to do so? If not his military advisers, then who do you think decided for the president that he should drop the nukes? What happens if we let corporations and wealthy investors rewrite history for us?

Don't expect me to stop reminding people of what facts exist. As stated in lots of other arguments, you can erase history from your mind but you can't erase what actually happened.


Curtis lemay's opinion is just that - his opinion it is not a fact. It is an opinion I and it seems one or two others disagree with. In a free society you do not have to agree with the military nor do we credit them with superior knowledge and wisdom.

In the American constitution the civilian leadership commands the military, I trust you are not seriously suggesting it should be otherwise. thankfully otherwise the cuban crisis would have ended very differently than it did.

It's not me you're disputing, it's the leaders of your country and army.


Not mine he wasn't - or yours come to that.

Posted by accountable

Another simple question, this - is there anyone here who doubts that, had any nation other than the United States been the sole power to have used a nuclear device on a city, spot would not have started a thread on it, and certainly not using the phrasing he did?


Had the axis powers had nuclear weapons it is more than likely that spot would not have been born.

The war crimes trials and the resulting laws and international courts that stem from it owe more than a little to american input. The irony that america refuses to recognise the jurisdiction of those courts when it suits iseems to be lost on most americans.