'Oppenheimer' finally premieres in Japan to mixed reactions and high emotions
'Oppenheimer' finally premieres in Japan to mixed reactions and high emotions
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Just for the people who want to defend a nearly 100 year old tragedy for some reason. Here is a document from the US armed forces calling you a fucking idiot.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945. Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war. and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. - The United States Strategic Bombing survey (European war) (Pacific War) https://ia801903.us.archive.org/33/items/unitedstatesstra00cent/unitedstatesstra00cent.pdf
When Hiroshima was erased in less than a second, the Japanese navy had been eradicated.
The status of their mainland holdings was irrelevant, because they were under blockade.
Their air force was out of planes, oil, and pilots.
Their mechanization program basically never happened in the first place, and their tanks were irrelevant to a military that had marched to Berlin.
Their miracle weapon programs were failures or still in development.
They'd lost 2 million troops trying to conquer China, Korea, and the Philippines and killing 20 million people in the process.
They knew from the start that victory against America alone was impossible. The warmongers just thought the filthy gaijins would surrender if they sank enough of the Pacific Fleet.
They had agreed to abide by the Geneva Conventions and then immediately broke their word.
They had already seemingly refused a conditional surrender offer.
The person writing the paper that council of academics pulled their ideas from has been repeatedly found falsifying documents and denying the Rape of Nanking.
The USA waited three days between bombings to give them time to surrender in the face of power even the most delusional could not deny.
Do you know what happened instead?
The military tried to launch a coup to stop the surrender after the second bomb, the Kyuju incident. The War Minister tried to enlist the rest of the government to help against the wishes of their literal God Emperor.
Get fucking real with your "They were going to surrender anyways."
Now if want to argue the Allies should have just starved them out instead...
Maybe. How many peasants do you think the most zealous military cult in history would have let die before admitting defeat?
How much would you have spent offering mercy to an enemy that had none of their own?
I think the civilian target is hard to justify, but that ship had well and truly sailed in that war at that point, so it's interesting that it gets singled out. Presumably because it was only two bombs, versus hundreds of thousands. Fact is, it did happen, and plenty more besides. I think we can agree none of it was ideal.
America's classic "bomb civilians tactic"
"the military launched a coup". Really? The whole military? All against Hirohito himself. Musta been a Chad to single handedly stop the entire Japanese military from couping him.
What you meant to say is a cadre of young officers attempted to storm some government buildings before being put down quickly by the Japanese military.
But ya know what they say. Grain of truth and all that.
Hey, have you ever looked into the Japanese negotiation strategy for peace against the "unconditional terms" we ended up giving them? I'll save you the trouble, they are identical. The problem is that by refusing to negotiate and demanding unconditional surrender, you don't care about stopping the war and saving lives. You care about making your years of jingoistic demands seem legit. We demanded unconditional surrender not because we didn't like their terms, but because we needed to embarrass them for political points back home.
That is not worth nuking 2 cities for.
Imagine killing two urban centers worth of civilians for the sole purpose of proving a point. Scum.
All of human knowledge at your fingertips and this is your take lol.
Imagine, if you will, all the people. Living life, dare I say it, in peace. Etc.
Where is that in the document? I tried to find it but it's long and I couldn't spot it. Weren't the bombs dropped in August '45?
it's not in there
Not as a quote but the picture painted is extremely clear. They knew the war was unwinnable. The high command knew it and the emperor knew it.
I will say the idea that we weren't saving a million lives by nuking them depends on hindsight. We had just gotten done with some of the most brutal fighting in the world's history. We had no reason to suspect they would just lay down their arms.
Man, it would be a shame if you looked at page 107. You know you can just control f search PDF's right?
Mine only goes up to page 94
I'm unsure why it would be getting cut off for you. I will provide a screenshot of the page.
Page 107. Not PDF page, document page.
Thank you.
Reading it over, I can see that scenario would have involved continued fire bombing campaigns, which had already killed over 300,000 people and left over 8 million homeless. It also suggests that many of Japan's 2 million troops and thousands of planes would have been destroyed before surrender.
It says the vast majority of people surveyed in Japan at the time were willing to continue fighting the war, and the political structure made surrender particularly unlikely.
What do you think the US should have done in 1945?
Interesting fact about this document is that from what I recall, the air force pushed hard on the idea that bombing alone would be sufficient to win in an effort to secure funding when the US military downsized post-war. I'd fake its findings with at least a little grain of salt.
Also, it's not like we could really have simply sat on our hands until December...the American public wanted results and the cost if the war was astronomical already, so adding on months of mobilization and war economy to "save the lives of a few Japs" (to use the relatively widely held stance of Americans at the time) was never going to happen. To say nothing of the toll on human lives regular strategic bombing and famine conditions would inflict...