in article , jake at
wrote on 12/18/03 2:48 PM:

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 14:10:41 +0900, Ernest Schaal
wrote:

Jake,

I don't think you don't understand anything about Japanese culture,
especially that of the dark years when the military influence became more
and more dominant.

Whether or not the "Japanese military had already been defeated" doesn't
change the fact that the Japanese deaths would have been much greater if
both bombs had not been dropped.

this is not a "fact " but your assertion..

It not merely my assertion, but that of others as well.


The civilians were being trained to use
bamboo spears to attack any allied troops who landed in Japan.

civilians with bamboo spears would not have been much of a contest for
the most powerful and technologically superior military machine ever
assembled in the history of the world..now would it?

True, they probably would not be effective against our forces, but a poorly
armed force that can't (not permitted to) surrender usually has high
causalities.

You speak of "the ravings of defeated meglomaniacs who had LOST their
power." Unfortunately, those "defeated meglomaniacs" had not lost their
political power in Japan.

they lost it the instant the army was defeated..
To quote one of your neighbours..
"political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"

The above statement shows that you know absolutely nothing about Japanese
history or Japanese culture. Although there had been peasant revolts for
over a thousand years, those revolts were always unsuccessful and ended
poorly for those who revolted. Considering that history, a successful revolt
against the military-controlled government simply was not an option.

The form of government in Japan was not a
democracy or even a republic, instead it was a continuation of a centuries
old tradition of using the emperor as a figurehead to govern.

And once defeated the form of government became a matter for the
victors..

That didn't happen until after the surrender.


I recommend that you read the Meiji Constitution of 1889, which governed the
war years.

after the Tokyo raids it stopped at article one..

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/1889con.html

Article 1. The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a
line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.

Article 2. The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by Imperial male
descendants, according to the provisions of the Imperial House Law.

Article 3. The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.

While the Emperor was "sacred and inviolable," that Emperor was usually
controlled by his cabinet. Even the Meiji emperor really didn't have the
power that the constitution said he had.

If you knew anything about Japanese history, which you clearly don't, you
would have realized that even prior to the Tokugawa shogunate, and even
prior to the other shogunates, the real power did not rest in the Emperor.
During the Heian period ("Tale of Genji"), the emperor's advisers or
ex-emperors controlled the figurehead emperor. Occasionally an emperor would
endeavor to win back real power, but any success was fleeting.

The Tokyo raids did as much damage as the atomic bombs, but those raids did
not effectively reduce the political power of military nor did they change
the nature of that government, except to make it more determined. Even the
two atomic bombs were almost not enough.

Do you know anything about Japanese history?

only where it intersects with European history..

That explains a lot about your misconceptions on this matter.