(B2431) wrote:

From: (B2431)

From: "old hoodoo"

JMO:

The only issue about the Nagasaki and Hiroshima is if it is justifiable in
war to one child in the hopes that more children will be saved overall
and/or if a single soldier is more valuable than a single child. A basic
morality question.

snip more of the same.

Let's look at the options: blockade, atomic bombing, invasion and
conventional bombing.

I omitted one: the Allies could simply have taken all their toys and gone home.
This would have reduced the number of child deaths in Japan to near zero.

Yeah, right. After December 7, the invasion and rape of China, Korea, and
Southeast Asia, the fall of Bataan, the battle for Okinawa... we were
going to pack up and walk away? Not bl___y likely.

Truman was faced with what was probably one of the hardest decisions in
history. How much longer does this war have to go on, how many more men
have to die, how to keep the Russians from claiming yet more of Japan, and
what will it take to finally make the Japanese military leadership believe
that their cause is lost.

Truman's decision to use the atomic bombs was, IMO, the least of the
possible evils.

And before anyone starts arguing in favor of invasion, remember that if the
invasion succeeds, you now have to occupy and pacify that country. We did
occupy Japan for several years after, a task that was made easier by the
Emperor's order of surrender. Think in terms of the battle for Okinawa,
scale the casualties on both sides to match a mainland Japan invasion, and
_then_ try to occupy and pacify that country. No thanks.

| George Ruch
| "Is there life in Clovis after Clovis Man?"