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One other remark. I think (by some of previous posts in this thread) that battle for Okinawa was exeptionaly traumatic for Americans. Would you agree that this was perhaps one of the major reasons for final decision on using the atomic bombs?
gards.
One other remark. I think (by some of previous posts in this thread) that battle for Okinawa was exeptionaly traumatic for Americans. Would you agree that this was perhaps one of the major reasons for final decision on using the atomic bombs?
Even if they didn't "fight to the last man", I believe they wouldn't have surrendered until we invaded and destroyed several cities "the old fashioned way" and the emperor was dead. Post-war Japan needed the Emperor!
So, you do believe that they (Japanese people) would actually overthrow their emperor or even kill him(!) if he had declared himself in favor of surrender, without so horrible threat such is total destruction by atomic weapons? I'm not so sure. But as I said, to corectly answer this question one would really have to be expert about mentality of Japanese people, their tradition and importance of emperor in their culture.
No... he was a supreme deity. I don't believe they would have overthrown him.
Every country has dark places in it's history, and very few go there willingly...
Absolutely imalko. 50,000 casualties (12,500 dead) against 100,000 Japanese troops on the island. Do the math if we invaded the home islands. As stated before, the reason for the use of the A-bombs was to save American lives. The residual benefit was that it saved many Japanese lives as well.
TO
I don't think the decisions to drop bombs was an emotional decision. The entire Pacific campaign was traumatic. The bomb was dropped because we were convinced that the Japanese would not surrender w/o invading their home islands. True, they knew that they could no longer win the war but they were hoping for a honorable (relatively) and conditional armistice.
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Every country has dark places in it's history, and very few go there willingly...
I that case, can we agree on the fallowing: If emperor had declared himself in favor of surrender earlier (but still in 1945, let say after the end of fighting in Okinawa), then Japanese people would have submitted to his wishes and Japan would have indeed surrender, thus making atomic raids unnecessary?
We will never agree as long as you feel surrender was eminent and i do not.....
That is not to say, in any way, that what the Japanese did was not absolutely evil. But is it not an act of historical deflection in it's own right for you guys to criticize Japan for making anime about Hiroshima but not Nanking? Or put another way, (and making no direct moral comparison at all) how many US cartoon series deal with the conquest of the native American population by the USA? If there are very few, is that not historical deflection also? Every country has dark places in it's history, and very few go there willingly...
I just saw "Dances with wolves", which is an American movie IIRC. That one does deal with the indians and also does not deny the bad things, done by the white people. This is an example of the US not denying their history (I know there are examples of denying, too).
...One thing it left out, which I have yet to see in a movie about the American West, is the extreme violence committed by opposing native American tribes against each other. For centuries, many of the tribes practiced brutal, savage warfare that resulted in displacement and total war.