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RE: American Freedom?
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
What I meant to do was to describe the motivation, not justify it.
I have no qualms about justifying the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is up to each individual, reading his own moral compass, to determine for himself his attitude toward the dropping of the bombs. There are those who justify it, as I do, and those who consider it to have been immoral, and each is an equally valid position to take on the personal level. Those who stake a claim to "moral superiority," however, based on the position they take, are simply laying claim to a moral superiority that exists only in their own minds. At the risk of repeating earlier posts, I will lay out exactly why I think the dropping of the atomic bombs on japan was justified.
If the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not occurred, the Japanese High Command and Emperor Hirohito's War Cabinet planned to continue fighting, necessitating an invasion of the home islands in order to force a defeat and surrender. The Japanese military was literally fanatical about defending Japan and not surrendering. An American and allied invasion to defeat Japan would have meant facing a determined and fanatical Japanese military whose war plans were to make it so difficult for the American and allied invaders that they hoped for an eventual cessation of hostilities that would leave Japan in control of Manchuria and other conquests, and with no American and allied occupation of Japan. It would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of additional American, allied, and Japanese deaths. This, of course, would have been completely unacceptable to the allies. That is why the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified and necessary. It ended the war earlier than otherwise would have been the case, and it ended it with far fewer casualties--American, Japanese, and other Asians in Japanese occupied countries-- than would have been the case had the bombs not been dropped and an invasion been necessary to defeat Japan.
That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the issue. I fail to see the morality in withholding use of the bomb, with the resulting prolongation of the war and an invasion of Japan that would have resulted in hundreds of thousands of additional deaths, both military and civilian, on all sides.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 13 2012 20:48:03
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Bill, I find it disturbing that you admit to having no qualms about exterminating hundreds of thousands with a nuclear weapon. It is one thing to have to make that decision, but to justify it? That is, to say "it was just"? That is a frightening position.
To claim that nuclear holocaust or a bloody American invasion were the only two alternatives is also false and, in my opinion, close to misleading propaganda. The Americans had air and sea supremacy, not to mention the vast economic advantage they had enjoyed from the very start. The Japanese were isolated and the Americans could have sustained that strangehold indefinitely. The Japanese military was crippled, the regenerative capacities essentially nil, natural resources and fuel limited. This blockade could have been accomplished with little killing.
The rebuttal that this would be politically impossible is, again, not a justification, but rather an indictment of the civilization that would have such politics.
To Richard, Deniz, Ruphus: you called me out on my "human nature" assumption! It is revealing to have the mirror turned back on oneself in such a way. :)
_____________________________
Connect with me on Facebook, all the cool kids are doing it.
https://www.facebook.com/migueldemariaZ
Arizona Wedding Music Guitar
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Date Dec. 13 2012 21:47:04
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
Bill, I find it disturbing that you admit to having no qualms about exterminating hundreds of thousands with a nuclear weapon. It is one thing to have to make that decision, but to justify it?
I have given the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan a great deal of study and thought, Miguel. I do not make my statements lightly. I am not glibly claiming that killing thousands was justified in and of itself. What I do say, however, is that given the context of the Japanese position of intractible oppositon to any surrender, the dropping of the bombs was necessary and just in order to end the war. I appreciate that you think Japan would have collapsed without much effort by maintaining a blockade, but I think most military historians, particularly those specializing in the Pacific war, would disagree with you.
There is one other semantic quibble I would make. You state, "It is one thing to have to make that decision, but to justify it?" I would argue that to make the decision to drop the bomb was to justify it. Were it not justified in the minds of those making the decision, I'm sure they would not have decided as they did. If you read the memoirs of those who were at the center of the debate in the Truman Administration, many had moral qualms about it, and there were alternatives discussed, such as staging a demonstration explosion of an atomic bomb for the Japanese to see the powerful new weapon. All alternatives were rejected. Regarding the idea of a demonstration blast, what if one were announced and it was a dud and failed? In short, the men who made the decision were not shorn of moral consciences, but, on balance, they decided that dropping the bomb was necessary and, therefore, justified. That pretty much sums up my position as well.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 13 2012 22:13:39
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to dformell)
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My take on the lack of single payer health care is a little simpler. Corporations don't like escalating insurance premiums, but they are used to it. And they push more and more of the cost onto employees.
What seemed important to me was the calculation that without the insurance companies signing on and the medical profession lying doggo, Obamacare would never have passed. As it was, the insurance companies were saying, "Yeah, yeah, we're all for it," while shoveling money under the table to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce trying to sabotage the whole thing.
I think there was considerable danger, nay, near certainty that the medical professions would come out against a single payer system. Working for the government there would be constant pressure to cut medical people's pay. Even doctors who think medical pay is too high (yes, they exist) are jealous of their autonomy. They don't want Uncle Sam telling them how to practice medicine. Of course the insurance companies do so in effect, and the drug companies have their thumbs on the scales of trial statistics. But the higher the cost of medical care, the more money the insurance companies make. And my doctor, among too many others, thinks that she and the drug companies are playing on the same team.
She's a woman in her thirties, a brilliant Pakistani immigrant, well-educated in her home country and in the USA, working for the highly reputable giant group practice here in Austin. With impeccable Pakistani manners, she treats me, an older, educated, prosperous male with the greatest respect. I don't have the heart to take her on about the drug companies. i just look on the internet, talk to my brother the retired M.D., and very politely refuse to take almost all of the stuff she tries to prescribe. She brings it up at our next get together six months later, I mutter vaguely and politely refuse, and that's that.
On the subject of control of employees: Speaking for myself, as a former boss of a bunch of people in a big corporation, it was work enough for me trying to make sure people were doing the job i thought they ought to be doing. I enjoyed it. 99% of my employees were highly motivated and highly qualified. They were the cream of the crop, worldwide and locally. But on the remote military base where I worked, I thought I had too much control over people's lives for my own good. Housing, health care, schools, recreational facilities, no matter what it was, I was Big Daddy. If anything went wrong for the employee, it was up to Big Daddy to get on the phone, or to raise hell at the big boss's weekly staff meeting, or try to massage the housing assignment manager into seeing things my way. I wanted less control, not more.
Yes, there are a$$hole companies and a$$hole bosses, but the frequency of a$$holes in management is about the same as it is among employees in general--at least in my experience. I have left companies because they were terrible places to work and tried to exploit employees. Of course they exist. But I used to mention the law of equal and opposite reaction of hassle. The more you hassle your employees, the more hassle it is for you.
I have gotten one of my bosses fired, over a matter principle. Besides lying in a way that put me in a bad light, he miscalculated the relative power between the two of us. Once I embarrassed the secretary of a General Electric vice president I knew when I dropped by for a cup of coffee. Stammering a bit, she had to explain that he wasn't there because he was in jail--for a pretty long time--for cooking the books on a government contract. Of course, stuff like that does happen.
I wouldn't have taken an average corporate job for all the tea in China. I'm no good at being bossed. It puts me right out or sorts to have somebody tell me what to do. But I had an up close and personal look at companies that worked for me and at companies that i contracted to.
In corporate America there are a few very rare really good parts, a whole lot of pretty average parts, and a few swamps of human depravity. But corporate America is not a monolithic gulag, at least in my 40-odd years of experience in it.
You must have worked for some champion buttheads.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 14 2012 1:52:37
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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I've been thinking that bringing up the topic of whether or not the Enola Gay should have dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima is a pretty cliche' historical subject. This attack was horrific and was a world changing event, but it remains a loaded subject.
To bring this up and take the moral high ground by demanding a justification as a subject beginning like "Oh I've wondered all these years how you can justify this inhumane act...." at least for me trivializes the event itself. I think it trivializes the subject by posing it as a demand for a justification by a third party. It is too serious of a subject to be used as a finger pointing example of party X's morality vs. party Y's morality. Honestly it feels somewhat indulgent because it is basically a no brainer to adopt a hindsight attitude about this particular event.
In the end I think this is about each person facing history inside themselves. It does nothing to condemn or claim a morally superior position or even to extract a historical confession. The damage is done. Nothing will ever change this situation between the US and Japan. The karma, if you will, that was created was between these two countries, it may take hundreds or thousands of years, given the human race will last that long, for the effects of this event to be worked out between the two countries.
The point is that nothing is gained from hind sighting and and blaming today. It frankly sickens me that the subject is broached in an accusatory way, that to me at least personally, comes off as a "see I told you so" discussion point. I feel as an American vis a vis the atomic bomb that each one of us should face history by ourselves and evaluate ourselves, our own interior beings that go deeper below nationality, by our past actions as a country and resolve to never repeat the actions of the past even if we can justify them by the standards of the days such events happened. Another person cannot know you from the inside, they can't know what you have faced in history and what you have resolved for yourself about the injustice of the past. By resolve I don't infer coming to a peaceful resolution that lets yourself off the hook, I mean you resolve to continue to evaluate your countries actions.
When it comes to how you understand in your heart about the lessons of history and how you evaluate it does not mean that by not speaking what others demand to hear you are complicit with that which was wrong or that you agree. The important thing is to not continue to create suffering. Whether or not a past horrific act is a possible subject to mount by way of a justification of a condemnation is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to face history with our own interior and do an honest evaluation on yourself. To continue to be angry at your country of yourself perpetuates the inability to do an honest self examination of your relationships to difficult, unpleasant or horrifying acts your society or country perpetrated.
In the final each person is responsible for looking at history and the conclusion you arrive at intellectually whether you deem it right or wrong, has nothing to do with the resolve to never repeat the act or to carry the will to not repeat it. And to carry the compassion in yourself for those whom the act was committed against. To self evaluate and create a compassionate state inside yourself for the people who were killed or effected means so much more than accusations against states or demand for confession to a third party. If you can hold a space of compassion for the victims of Hiroshima or Nagasaki it works to ensure that that action and other acts like it are less likely to happen again in other contexts. As someone who will quite probably go to Nagasaki in a matter of several months and look at the city for myself that is about the only thing I can think of to humanly do. Facing history yourself and having compassion for those killed means more to me. Of course I'm Buddhist and this is how I truly believe, I realize others may not agree.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Dec. 14 2012 2:55:39
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Deniz
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
Regarding the idea of a demonstration blast, what if one were announced and it was a dud and failed?
Wow, that would have been horrible... i cant even imagine. Killing off millions of civilians was definitely the right decision there!
To close this topic for me, i hope that people learn to what silly statements nationalism can lead. Because the loyalty to the nation has to have priority over everything, reason is the first thing that dies to that. If neccessary you can always invent a pretext afterwards for what you did. In any case, it is always the enemy (state) that makes you do bad things.
I also want to mention that i find it depressing to see, that the only people who seem to care about political matters, are discussing things like altruism vs egoism, meanwhile we have states with heavy weaponry and no sign whatsoever that they would refrain to use them anytime they want. Sorry, but such discussions are way unwordly!!
Umm...it was less than 200,000 civilians, Not that it alters any conclusions to be drawn, but just for the sake of accuracy.
As for using heavy weaponry any time it was wanted, when the People's Army crossed the Yalu River, bringing China into the Korean War, Curtis LeMay, the WW II hero commander of the Strategic Air Command publicly proposed to "nuke them back to the stone age."
China had no means whatsoever of strategic retaliation. Would The Soviet Union, then China's ally, come to their assistance? The Soviets were still weak and reeling from WW II, with all its military resources engaged in Eastern Europe. They had just a handful of long range bombers. LeMay, and more importantly MacArthur thought the suggestion was ridiculous.
The U.N. (mostly American) and South Korean forces were driven into a small enclave at the south end of the peninsula.
If it weren't for MacArthur's masterful bisection of the Chinese by his invasion at Inchon, China and North Korea would have won the war. MacArthur, the supreme egotist and exemplar of vanity, a general for 31 years at the time, having borne half the burden of defeating Japan, stood on the deck of his ship watching the first wave go ashore at Inchon. He turned to the aide at his side and said, "This had better work."
Truman kept his finger off the nuclear trigger.
After turning the tables in Korea, MacArthur proposed pursuing the Chinese into their home country. Truman said "No." MacArthur, through various subterfuges, tried to provoke a pretext for war with China.
MacArthur was one of the two greatest Army heroes of WW II. He had been the military ruler of Japan, and carried out America's policy there with great efficiency and skill. Truman fired him for insubordination. MacArthur came home for the first time in decades, made a speech to Congress, made another speech at the Military Academy, and retired to what my father called "his throne room at the Waldorf Astoria [fanciest hotel in New York]." And he never meddled in military or state affairs again--except for a vain hope for the Republican presidential nomination, that went to the other great Army hero of WW ii, Eisenhower.
Later in the cold war, America was effectively constrained in its use of weapons by the strategic capabilities of the Soviet Union, so there was no test of self restraint. Resort to nuclear weapons by either country would have been suicidal.
People are deeply angered at the U.S. use of atomic weapons. Let me tell you, you are not one-tenth so pissed off as a great many Japanese still are. But let's not let anger cloud our vision of the facts, whatever your judgment of American morality.
The second American invasion of Iraq was planned as a pincers movement, with the Iraqis caught between forces invading from Kuwait in the south, and a force transiting Turkey from the north. The force from the north was to be the 4th Infantry Division, the U.S. Army's heaviest mechanized infantry unit. At the last minute Turkey refused permission for the 4th to cross their territory.
I was in the 4th Infantry Division when i was drafted into the Army in 1961. The 4th Division i was in could have driven across Turkey as though it were a stroll in the park. The 4th of the Iraq war was stronger, better equipped, better trained and had higher morale. When Turkey demurred, the movement from the north was cancelled. The 4th was brought around to the south and entered iraq from Kuwait months after it was scheduled, after the major combat was done. They came in handy in the insurgency that immediately followed.
What? I thought the Iraqis were all supposed to shower us in rose petals and thank us for ousting their dictator. Why are these guys blowing up stuff and shooting at us?
Umm, about that intelligence info, saying we didn't need much of an occupation force....
Personally, I was very dubious of the decision to invade Iraq at the time the decision was made. I had been involved in intelligence work part time for several years. The publicly presented intelligence indicating Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was very thin. You don't want to turn over any more cards in public than you have to, but Rumsfeld had set up a special intelligence unit to find evidence of WMD. I ask you, if your job is to find evidence of WMD, how are you going to get ahead in life?
I don't think the Bush administration lied about Iraq having WMD. I think they started from the firm belief that they did have WMD, and piled up every tiny straw of "evidence" they could find that supported their belief, until they thought they convince the world it was true. I have seen it happen, working in the intelligence business. They were wrong to start from a biased assumption and interpret tiny bits of information as proof of their preconceptions. It's the wrong way to do intelligence. It resulted in the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs. It contributed significantly to the fall of the Shah of Iran....I could go on.
In retrospect, I think invading Iraq was as bad an idea as I feared it might be. I was in good company. Colin Powell, despite being a good soldier and making his speech to the U.N. Security Council, firmly advised against it in his official capacity as Secretary of State, and as an experienced military man. George W. clearly implied that his father, who had pushed Saddam out of Kuwait, counseled against it.
But the point is, the 4th Division could have crossed Turkey according to plan, hardly getting dust on their boots. Turkey would have been powerless to stop them, and foolish to try. But the 4th Division went the other way around. Turkey is too valuable an ally to treat with contempt.
Anger has clouded judgment and led to slaughter. We have to guard against it clouding our vision, whether the anger is justified or not.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 14 2012 3:55:41
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Miguel, I don't want to trivialize this important (and I think interesting) discussion by making what would amount to "bullet" points regarding why maintaining a blockade of Japan would have been unacceptable to the United States and the allies, both strategically (i.e., the goal of defeating Japan) and in terms of the U.S. having gone through nearly five years of hard, bitter fighting in Europe and the Pacific. The allied wartime leaders and people wanted to end the war and the killing, period. And don't forget the Japanese forces still in control of parts of Southeast Asia. They would have continued fighting, had the Japanese not surrendered, even with the home islands under a blockade. I have provided my detailed reasoning why I think the bombing of Japan to end the war was necessary and justified in several posts above. On the specific question of why a blocade alone was unacceptable, again, bullet points would trivialize the issue and extensive paragraphs would become boring. Instead, I would like to offer some good sources on the subject of ending the war with Japan.
There are two very good British military historians who have written extensively on the subject. John Keegan's history of World War II is excellent. So, too, is Max Hastings' book on World War II entitled, "Inferno: The World at War: 1939 to 1945." The best book I have read on the the final year in the push to defeat Japan is Max Hastings' work entitled "Retribution." It details the horrendous battles that occurred as the allies pushed closer to Japan, and the thinking and decisions that went into determining how to finish it off. The best book I have read that centers on the debate and decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan is written by Wilson D. Miscamble, who, ironically, is a Catholic priest on the faculty of Notre Dame. Miscamble's book is entitled, "The Most Controversial Decision."
In the interest of fair play, I would also like to offer a couple of authors on the other side of the issue. Gar Aperowitz and Barton Bernstein have both written extensively to support their claim that Japan would have readily surrendered without the dropping of the bomb. I think, however, that they (particularly Aperowitz) omit crucial information and shade their evidence to support their thesis. Nevertheless, you may be interested in their take on the issue.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 14 2012 12:04:58
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
For the altruistic qualities you mention to have evolved genetically into the "default motives", the theory of evolution predicts they must have enabled their possessors to produce more offspring than the more selfish members of the species. But where did all the selfish people come from?
Altruism would not define correctly. The more as altruism describes an overdone behaviour on contrary aims. ( Pretention of sacrificing oneself in order to gain own revaluation.)
What has been genetical beneficial has been cognitive mirroring and other features like reduced iris to estimating mate and enemy action, empathic skills to gain and strengthen bonds, and socializing ability to get along in groups.
All skills that could be and sometimes were engaged for the opposite as well; hence for misuse, robbing and murdering of fellow humans / hominids.
However, under prehistorical conditions misuse wouldn´t lead as far as it can today, when you have not to defend from sabre-tooth tigers and can obtain your food and supply from supermarkets ( as long as you only possess the money prey of fellows to pay ).
This is simplified why todays short-sightedness and recklessness "works" in a way that wouldn´t had lasted for long evolutionary.
Evolution hasn´t tought us altruism, but benefits of cooperation. It has provenly tought us how partnership helps yourself in every way, from the secondary reward to the primary one.
- And not seeing that anymore indicates the actual low cognitive level of our time inspite of its academic progress.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
Capitalism creates "high standards of living" for large numbers of people.
Only seen through a discrete lense.
Through a wide angle however, under consideration of efficiency with resource consumption and the destruction of diverse kinds, capitalism is a deserting bush fire that serves a lasting minority while leaving behind no future of equality, reason and humanity.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
But there are people crazy enough to claim that pure selfishness is a virtue, and others equally misguided who claim that the only virtue is self-sacrifice.
Beautifully said!
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
No one could articulate their position without damning the others. I adjourned the meeting, to meet again in two days, same ground rules. In the second meeting we reached agreement on how to proceed.
I understand well what you mean.
In view of societal matters however, when there has not even been cleared what the difference between plutocracy and democracy is, perspective on history / on actual ethos behind establishment´s formal labels of decency is needed to wake up common sense first.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Richard Jernigan
I'm not saying we shouldn't try to learn from history in order to come up with better stories to tell ourselves about economics and politics. But I am saying that damning the perceived opposition is a sure road to inaction.
So, what could be the way?
Expecting exploiting minorities, their entourage and court to switch to decency and foresight of reason, for being spoken to like to a sincerely striving party?
I think artfulness is artfulness, and a spirit that made itself comfortable with crapping all over the earth ought to face that stand sooner or later.
To be conservative means wanting to conserve. A conservative is due to look at this planets condition and to ask himself about his human qualities. Due to inform himself, like any other.
quote:
ORIGINAL: dformell
... health insurance companies make money through people's personal suffering and death; any person of conscience wouldn't be for that.
Right, and it indicates whose the given ways of state are.
A state of the people would be presenting and acting beneficiary for the people. Hence, it would be self-evident for a people´s state to not leave fields like insurance, health, brokering, banking, education, energy, mass transport ( or prisoning) to profiteering privates.
These ought to be managed for people´s support, not for extort with primary demand.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria
To Richard, Deniz, Ruphus: you called me out on my "human nature" assumption! It is revealing to have the mirror turned back on oneself in such a way. :)
Not at all. Instead I found your question on the nails head. Specially because of the "human nature" myth cemented and detrimental characteristics that need so much more illumination.
Just think about what has come out of declaring culture specifics as inherently human.
All the moralizing, exorcising, warring ... trillions of killings or ruined lives, and worse even justification of blatant conditions as allegedly inevitable. ( Always omitting a zoom on culture and its background of exploitation.)
quote:
ORIGINAL: ddk
If we wanted to make a statement of power, why didn't we drop the bomb in the ocean off the coast of Japan?
Well remarked.
Even duds shouldn´t have been obstacle, as any following drop would had clarified the destructive potential still.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Doitsujin
I request to close this ridiculous threat!
Do discussions irk you only for them indicating the shallow waters you prefer to crawl in? How can you be so fed up and even liking it?
Apparently never worried of missing out on anything.
I really don´t get such attitude in life.
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
To ... take the moral high ground by demanding a justification ... as a finger pointing example of party X's morality vs. party Y's morality.
That is not at all what sincere debate is about.
The dispute is about qualities of minority policies, not about guilt of nations.
Lesser yet with policies of governments that are not of the people.
You may free yourself from the patriot nonesense.
My friend Stephen can´t be Roosevelt or Nixon, nor Thoreou or Eddison even if he wanted to.
You are an autonomous person whose conscious personal doings have not been entangled in the US international agenda. And I am 99% convinced that this is how it remained if you had been authorized, present and informed on the actual situations and sketches of the history in question ( or all of since America´s settlement, for that matter ).
With officials like you the continent today might have been the United Indian´s with no Pearl Harbour, no Hiroshima and possibly even no abroad rising of guys like Hitler.
... Rather could there be discussion among a bunch of UI parliamental parties whether squaws be allowed in pow-pows or not.
Ruphus
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Date Dec. 14 2012 12:07:52
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Thank you, Bill, I will check those sources out. It's an interesting topic, and it's high time I investigate it in more detail to probe my own position. I was inpired to do a little Googling. What is very surprising to me is that almost all accounts assume that either an immediate surrender or nuking were the two only options. A continued blockade is almost never even countenanced. It is fascinating. I wonder, then, if it was the threat of the Soviets taking that land that pushed the timetable.
You may find this page interesting, a collection of quotes from notables (Eisenhower, MacArthur, Leahy, John McLoy, Ralph Bird, etc) as to why they felt the bomb was unnecessary:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-10-14/real-reason-america-used-nuclear-weapons-against-japan
_____________________________
Connect with me on Facebook, all the cool kids are doing it.
https://www.facebook.com/migueldemariaZ
Arizona Wedding Music Guitar
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Date Dec. 14 2012 14:39:21
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: American Freedom? (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Stephen,
Even if the impression in your book is one of finger wagging, it is way too trivial and underestimating the actual intention of pointing out inhumane policies on major level, far away from any population´s representation.
Like what you ( and the world) may estimate as "too carried away".
I really don´t want to annoy you, but things in history were too far. And Roosevelt alikes were far from being a nation´s integer father figure.
I have just been trying to google about American industrials´ support for the yet unkown Hitler and his PR, like Ford´s help up from 1924.
Instead only found links about later aid like about the nazi lorries built by Chrysler and their tanks built by GM, Standard Oil´s supply of fuel and oil up to 1944, or SKF ball bearings until 1945.
Not what I was actually seeking for, but maybe interesting enough for now.
quote:
Without American leadership, training and support, German National Socialism would likely have still pursued the Final Solution to the West’s Jewish Problem, but the effort would have lacked the credibility of a “scientific” justification, the enthusiastic moral support of America’s elite, the funds provided by America’s wealthy.
http://blogs.jpost.com/content/hitler-america-sought-racial-improvement-its-aryan-master-race
quote:
The cream of American industry, also under the sway of eugenics, generously provided the financial and technical knowhow that enabled Hitler to raise Germany from deep economic depression into a full employment, modern industrial economy able to create a military that nearly defeated Europe and the combined forces of the western allies and the Soviet Union. According to his armaments chief Albert Speer, Hitler “‘would never have considered invading Poland’ without synthetic fuel technology provided by [DuPont-Standard Oil-] General Motors.” Without the assistance of American industry had the “Holocaust” been attempted it would likely have been limited to one-on-one murders by einsatsgruppen, limited by a far shorter war.
http://blogs.jpost.com/content/arming-enemy-us-industry-hitler-and-holocaust
quote:
"You will be interested to know," Goethe's letter proclaimed, "that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the intellectuals behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought, and particularly by the work of the Human Betterment Foundation.
"I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."
· Extracted from War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
In the AE-realm we say "You can´t polish a turd", and you shouldn´t try that with administration and its background only for to defend population which is not being aimed at anyway.
In the opposite: The American people showed noble stand against German American Nazi followers who tried to fire up Nazi propaganda in the US.
The simplicity of patching up American people with their Upper Fourhundred strategies seems to not really fit your general thoughtfulness.
Doitsujin,
Please delete or shorten your above hitch. It enforces scrolling and potentially only keeps folks from reading for whome we actually invested our time.
I don´t understand what for you frisk the OT section anyway, while annoyed by things you don´t care to read anyway. Solicitous ignorance might appear like a blessing to you, but does not justify purposefully disturbing others´ contributions and energy.
Ruphus
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