Was Hiroshima an act of terrorism?

There's no real evidence of that, Tom. There is speculation from US leaders, but there has always been plenty of testimonials from Japan that they would not surrender.
 
Establishment said:
There's no real evidence of that, Tom. There is speculation from US leaders, but there has always been plenty of testimonials from Japan that they would not surrender.
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Speculation my arse!! They were there at the time and were well aware of what the Japanese were gong to do. Did you know that there was a poll conducted at Los Alamos and the vast majority of the scientists voted against using it on the Japanese. General Groves ensured that Truman never saw it before the bombs were dropped.

Atomic Weapons Were Not Needed to End the War or Save Lives

Like all Americans, I was taught that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to end WWII and save both American and Japanese lives. But most of the top American military officials at the time said otherwise. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey group, assigned by President Truman to study the air attacks on Japan, produced a report in July of 1946 that concluded (52-56):

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.
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General (and later president) Dwight Eisenhower – then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces, and the officer who created most of America’s WWII military plans for Europe and Japan – said:
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The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.
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Newsweek, 11/11/63, Ike on Ike​
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Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):

In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….
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Admiral William Leahy – the highest ranking member of the U.S. military from 1942 until retiring in 1949, who was the first de facto Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and who was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II – wrote (pg. 441):

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.

The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. 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 war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.
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General Douglas MacArthur agreed (pg. 65, 70-71):

MacArthur’s views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed …. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.
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Moreover (pg. 512):

The Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face ‘prompt and utter destruction.’ MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the General’s advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary.
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Similarly, Assistant Secretary of War John McLoy noted (pg. 500):

I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favorable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs.
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Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph Bird said:

I think that the Japanese were ready for peace, and they already had approached the Russians and, I think, the Swiss. And that suggestion of [giving] a warning [of the atomic bomb] was a face-saving proposition for them, and one that they could have readily accepted.

***
In my opinion, the Japanese war was really won before we ever used the atom bomb. Thus, it wouldn’t have been necessary for us to disclose our nuclear position and stimulate the Russians to develop the same thing much more rapidly than they would have if we had not dropped the bomb.
.War Was Really Won Before We Used A-Bomb, U.S. News and World Report, 8/15/60, pg. 73-75.​
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He also noted (pg. 144-145, 324):

It definitely seemed to me that the Japanese were becoming weaker and weaker. They were surrounded by the Navy. They couldn’t get any imports and they couldn’t export anything. Naturally, as time went on and the war developed in our favor it was quite logical to hope and expect that with the proper kind of a warning the Japanese would then be in a position to make peace, which would have made it unnecessary for us to drop the bomb and have had to bring Russia in.
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General Curtis LeMay, the tough cigar-smoking Army Air Force “hawk,” stated publicly shortly before the nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan:

The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all. The Vice Chairman of the U.S. Bombing Survey Paul Nitze wrote (pg. 36-37, 44-45):​

concluded that even without the atomic bomb, Japan was likely to surrender in a matter of months. My own view was that Japan would capitulate by November 1945.

***

Even without the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it seemed highly unlikely, given what we found to have been the mood of the Japanese government, that a U.S. invasion of the islands [scheduled for November 1, 1945] would have been necessary. Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence Ellis Zacharias wrote:​


Just when the Japanese were ready to capitulate, we went ahead and introduced to the world the most devastating weapon it had ever seen and, in effect, gave the go-ahead to Russia to swarm over Eastern Asia.

Washington decided that Japan had been given its chance and now it was time to use the A-bomb.

I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.

​
Ellis Zacharias, How We Bungled the Japanese Surrender, Look, 6/6/50, pg. 19-21.

Brigadier General Carter Clarke – the military intelligence officer in charge of preparing summaries of intercepted Japanese cables for President Truman and his advisors – said (pg. 359):

When we didn’t need to do it, and we knew we didn’t need to do it, and they knew that we knew we didn’t need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs.
​
 
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what was the US supposed to do between August 6th, and November - or whenever the Russians were supposedly coming in?
 
anatta said:
what was the US supposed to do between August 6th, and November - or whenever the Russians were supposedly coming in?
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It was a political decision not a military one, you have been fed propaganda all your life. Eisenhower though that they were about to surrender, do you know more than him?

Eisenhower also noted (pg. 380):
.
In [July] 1945… Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. …the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.

During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude….
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Milagro said:
It was a political decision not a military one, you have been fed propaganda all your life. Eisenhower though that they were about to surrender, do you know more than him?
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ya.I've seen the references.. but that is 20-20 hindsight ( if it's true),,
And about how long would it have taken the emperor to sway the military who wern't swayed after the 1st bomb?
Put yourself there-or better yet put yourself somewhere in the Pacific..serving in a US uniform; what would you have wanted?

To simply say Truman did this for re-election is facile. It was in the world's interest to end the war ASAP-
and whatever else is said, the bomb(s) did that. That is a historical fact.
 
Milagro said:
It was a political decision not a military one, you have been fed propaganda all your life. Eisenhower though that they were about to surrender, do you know more than him?
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Well; it's probably a good idea that the US didn't listen to all the Americans that thought we shouldn't be helping GB, at the start of the war.
 
anatta said:
ya.I've seen the references.. but that is 20-20 hindsight ( if it's true),,
And about how long would it have taken the emperor to sway the military who wern't swayed after the 1st bomb?
Put yourself there-or better yet put yourself somewhere in the Pacific..serving in a US uniform; what would you have wanted?

To simply say Truman did this for re-election is facile. It was in the world's interest to end the war ASAP-
and whatever else is said, the bomb(s) did that. That is a historical fact.
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I didn't say Truman did it for re-election, you did, the election was still three years away!! He did it for expediency and was not supported by many in the military. That is a matter of historical record, why don't you go check if you don't believe me.
 
USFREEDOM911 said:
If the Germans would have been able to construct it first; I can see possible targets that were nothing but civilians, like London, Moscow, etc.
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And it would have been a game changer, even late in the war when the Nazis defeat looked eminent. Actually, it was the German physcists who first split the atom. Then it was game-on because people could see where it was heading. If our board liberals are wringing their hands over what we did to Japan, imagine how it would be if Hitler got it first.

Ironically, nuclear weapons made total war unthinkable. It makes no sense to start one. You put yourself at risk in anuclear exchange; and if you're wanting to build an empire, the territory you nuked will be worthless until the radiation dissipates.

The Soviets understood this in the Cold War. They were communists that did terrible things to their own people but they were essentially rational.

Iran, not so much. But that's another debate.
 
Milagro said:
I didn't say Truman did it for re-election, you did, the election was still three years away!! He did it for expediency and was not supported by many in the military. That is a matter of historical record, why don't you go check if you don't believe me.
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I rarely use Valley Girl talk...but "whatever" is apropos here. (another reference I read said it was political).
Whether he was supported by many in the military (who are always ready for the next battle) isn't all that germaine
to his decision making either.

His sole duty as US Commander-in Chief as well as POTUS was to end the war on US terms ASAP.
That's what happened.
 
christiefan915 said:
Isn't it worth a try?
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Not when so many of them consider expansionism a religious imperative. The radicals divide the globe into two segments: that which is controlled by Islam; and the other which has yet to be. Dar al Islam and dar al Harab.

The house of Islam and the house of war.

Whatever greviances OBL had with western empirialism or the US, his ultimate objective was to bring territory into submission under Islam. Even as we speak, there are jihadists in Europe planning their next terrorist attack...if not if, it's when...and killing people is secondary to bringing Europe into the caliphate.

And it wouldn't matter if all of Europe were Switzerland and practiced strict isolationism.

Contrary to propaganda that states otherwise, Islamists want Jews removed the territory which comprises Israel. The Palestinians are pawns in that process. That's why they talk of 'wiping Israel from the map'. It's not a manner of speaking or a metaphor to them. Israel sits on historical dar al Islam. So Israel's existence is an affront to every jihadist or radical Islamist.

You and I, as two kaffirs, can sit here and debate which Muslims have the sounder theological argument, but it doesn't mitigate what the radicals are up to or change their objectives.

So no, leaving them alone won't change anything. Besides, it's too late for that. And we should do everything possible to keep them from getting nukes.

But it may be too late for that.
 
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anatta said:
I rarely use Valley Girl talk...but "whatever" is apropos here. (another reference I read said it was political).
Whether he was supported by many in the military (who are always ready for the next battle) isn't all that germaine
to his decision making either.

His sole duty as US Commander-in Chief as well as POTUS was to end the war on US terms ASAP.
That's what happened.
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Whatever indeed, the bomb was intended for Germany. Most of the top brass and the scientists at Los Alamos were against its use on Japan. However it is noted that your use of the end justifies the means argument doesn't sit well with you.

Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk
 
Milagro said:
Whatever indeed, the bomb was intended for Germany. Most of the top brass and the scientists at Los Alamos were against its use on Japan. However it is noted that your use of the end justifies the means argument doesn't sit well with you.

Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk
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LOL..I don't lose any sleep over it. History needs to be judged in context of time and events.
This is an interesting discussion..a lot of "what if's-what could be" that widen the discussion,
but the moves on the chessboard were forced by events and time.
 
anatta said:
LOL..I don't lose any sleep over it. History needs to be judged in context of time and events.
This is an interesting discussion..a lot of "what if's-what could be" that widen the discussion,
but the moves on the chessboard were forced by events and time.
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Pretty much.

Hiroshima looks a lot worse when you isolate it from the broader geopolitical context. But factor in the stark realities of WWII, the nascent nuclear arms race; the 'what ifs' if we hadn't dropped the bomb on Japan and etc, then it looks a little different.

Which is unfortunate if you're out to make a point about the country looking bad.
 
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