Press Secretary Carney Knows Propaganda

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan......So you are saying it would have been OK for us to lose just a "few" more of our troops to allow other options to be pursued? I strongly disagree! In war you go all out to protect your own. Enemy casualties, unfortunately including civilians, are secondary priority.

No, in war you do not deliberately target civilian populations. We are not barbarians. That's what people with no ethics and morals do. Just because you are pursuing a good end does not mean that evil means are justified.

[cptau 169]

Titan......So you are saying it would have been OK for us to lose just a "few" more of our troops to allow other options to be pursued? I strongly disagree! In war you go all out to protect your own. Enemy casualties, unfortunately including civilians, are secondary priority.

No, in war you do not deliberately target civilian populations. We are not barbarians. That's what people with no ethics and morals do. Just because you are pursuing a good end does not mean that evil means are justified.

The firebombing of Japan and Germany also should not have been done?

In Dresden when as many as 100,000 may have been killed in firebombing in February 1945.

In Tokyo, US bombers in March 1945 used incendiary bombs killing more than 100,000 people.

Firebombing was used extensively in Japan. The main differences in firebombing and atomic bombing are radiation and number of bombs dropped.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Titan....I never said anyone should DELIBERATELY target civilians but in war they are quite often collateral damage. Better them than my soldier Father.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan....I never said anyone should DELIBERATELY target civilians but in war they are quite often collateral damage. Better them than my soldier Father.

They weren't collateral damage in this instance. They were the target. The industrial and military targets in those cities could easily have been hit with conventional bombs, as we were already doing effectively. If in the course of hitting those to degrade Japan's military and industrial capability some innocent civilians get killed, that's 'collateral' damage.

Dropping a bomb you know will incinerate tens or hundreds of thousands of non-combatants and they will make up the vast majority of the deaths is deliberately targeting them.

I'm glad your soldier father wasn't killed, just as I'm glad my soldier grandfather who served in the Pacific in WWII wasn't killed. That doesn't mean I think annihilating 200,000 innocent civilians (including at least 10,000 Christians in Nagasaki alone...the largest collection of Christians at the time in Japan) in the course of a few days when it's entirely avoidable is the right thing to do.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan......So you are saying it would have been OK for us to lose just a "few" more of our troops to allow other options to be pursued? I strongly disagree! In war you go all out to protect your own. Enemy casualties, unfortunately including civilians, are secondary priority.

No, in war you do not deliberately target civilian populations. We are not barbarians. That's what people with no ethics and morals do. Just because you are pursuing a good end does not mean that evil means are justified.

The firebombing of Japan and Germany also should not have been done?

In Dresden when as many as 100,000 may have been killed in firebombing in February 1945.

In Tokyo, US bombers in March 1945 used incendiary bombs killing more than 100,000 people.

Firebombing was used extensively in Japan. The main differences in firebombing and atomic bombing are radiation and number of bombs dropped.

I never said I agreed with firebombing civilian populations either.

[cptau 169]

Titan....I never said anyone should DELIBERATELY target civilians but in war they are quite often collateral damage. Better them than my soldier Father.

My father was an infantryman in the 35th Infantry Division which stopped at the Elbe river 60 miles from Berlin and waited for the Russians. On Sept 6th 1945 the entire division was on the Queen Mary headed for New York and eventual deployment to invade Japan. While at sea they were told the atomic bomb had been dropped on Japan. Everyone on the ship cheered as they felt the war was over for them, they were right.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

I too regret the loss of so many Japanese lives but without doubt it shortened the war and saved the lives of a lot of Ameicans.

If it saved just one, that one would likley have been someone's Father, brother, etc.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

The point is, the war could have ended without it and without the ground invasion. The Japanese had been trying to find a face saving way to surrender for months actually. And they much preferred to surrender to the US than to Russia who would exact a much heavier price.

The crazy thing is, Christianity in Japan had been all but extinguished a couple of centuries earlier but somehow the struggling Japanese Christians survived through persecutions that rivaled the earliest days of the faith in the Roman Empire. They built the cathedral with their own money and that was where the Nagasaki bomb detonated 500m overhead. What the Japanese couldn't do in 200 years of brutal persecution we managed to do in about 9 seconds...obliterate Christianity in Japan.

That's not to lessen the importance of the hundreds of thousands who died in the span of 3 days, but it should bring home to us that it wasn't just the "other" that were killed. Our brothers and sisters were.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

But I come back to my original point.......there was no other option that wouldn't have cost MORE American lives.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

But I come back to my original point.......there was no other option that wouldn't have cost MORE American lives.

Yeah, there was. We could have worked with the Japanese and not been so stringent on some of our demands for surrender that in the end wouldn't have made a hill of beans difference.

And despite the risk of American lives lost if the war took a bit longer to officially end, the ends do not justify the means. You don't incinerate 200,000 civilians.

If the only criteria for how to wage a war is not to cost ANY more American lives, then we should just dispense with conventional means altogether and just drop a nuclear bomb on anyone we need to get back in line right at the start. Make a few hundred thousand folks into charcoal...war over.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

I guess we will just agree to disagree. I don't know if you served in the military or not but I think maybe it gives you a different perspective on things, right or wrong.

I would just ask one question.......right now if you could save the lives of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan to end that conflict by giving up your life, would you?

[Elephant Tipper 430]

Yes, facts are a "stubborn thing", but let me help you with the facts. FIrst, the atomic casualties, including long-term radiation illness, puts the number over 300K.

I was using a conservative estimate of immediate deaths so as not to be accused of padding the numbers.

Having said that, PERSPECTIVE is what matters to the "facts". The low-end calculated loss of life to invade Japan was estimated in the millions. America stopped the killing of millions more, and THAT is the stubborn fact.

And that "perspective" is not the only one. There are plenty of people who do not think a land invasion of Japan was necessary - a group that includes none other than Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials), and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Their naval capabilities were so degraded that they could not have broken a blockade, the Soviets declaring war put even more pressure on them and we had air superiority already and could bomb military/industrial targets without a lot of serious resistance. They were already defeated. That it ended things quicker is certainly not in dispute. That it saved millions of lives is contingent on one particular view on how the get Japan to surrender, but it is hardly the only one.

Bottom line is, we killed at least 150k innocent civilians in two swipes. And our choices were not limited to dropping atomic bombs or a ground invasion.

Your presentation of MacArthur's viewpoint is flat out WRONG ! How do I know that ? His former Chief of Staff (Korean Conflict, but served with DM throughout the Pacific in key positions including Japan), General Ned Almond, was my next door neighbor and a very close friend of my father's. I was privy to some of their discussions about how hardened the Japanese were, military and citizenry. It was a fight to the death for the whole nation of Japan with NO capitulation as an option. The US viewpoint had resolved itself to destroying the Japanese will to fight by any means necessary because otherwise it meant a protracted war for YEARS and potentially millions of deaths. The discussion you mention was early on and decided to NOT be an option. Frequently revisionists like yourself make errant, unfounded statements that get passed along in an attempt to create a new historical narrative, one that demeans the honor of those on the front lines of war. Your statement that the Japanese were "already defeated" is wrong. Dropping the atomic bombs saved lives, millions.

As an aside, I have seen the primary battle map of Inchon that Gen. DM gave Gen. Almond. Amazing !

That doesn't jive with any of the things he said on the record:

Where on earth do you get that MacArthur et al supported no invasion of Japan ? Invasion was always the plan and was named Operation Downfall if Allied troops were able. Man, you libs really are out to revise history, I just didn't know how greatly. What did you expect Japan to do in your scenario of surrendering ? Just say, "Thanks America for not invading us. Since you won't invade us we'll stop waging war. Thank you. Yankee go home now."

In preparation for this invasion, MacArthur generated a low end estimate of American casualties invading Japan to be over 200K. Other estimates ranged well over 1,000,000, and one was in the range of up to 4 million. During the entire war American casualties were 400K. Invading Japan was going to be THE MOST costly battle of WWII in terms of casualties, no ifs, ands, or buts, a minimum of 50% more. We had determined that Japan had 3/4s of a million of their best troops defending the homeland and about 500K of militia. What we discovered after the war was that Japan had 3-4x as many militia ready to fight. This was a part of Operation Ketsu-Go. Their mantra was "100 million die proudly". Japan had about 70 million population, I think. They were willing to fight to the finish. This is why I stated that "NO capitulation was an option". Even the citizenry was willing to be obliterated.

The calculation was "do we lose a minimum of 200K American lives (not counting Allied troops or even the Japanese) or do we lose the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?" Remember, Japan had already lost 100K + citizens in a millisecond and that didn't end the war so a few days later we bombed Nagasaki. Japan STILL didn't surrender for another week. Had the military brass been successful in lobbying Hirohito the war would have continued in spite of being nuked twice. Let me repeat that, In spite of being nuked TWICE the Japanese resisted surrendering. Fortunately they didn't know we were out of bullets, otherwise the Japanese would have continued war.

Dropping the atomic bomb was designed not only to end the war with Japan, but to also stymie the Soviet Union's expansion. They were on the march toward Japan. They declared war on Japan the day before we dropped the bomb.

Btw, Eisenhower had nothing to do with the Pacific theater. He was Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, consequently he had no decision making in the Pacific theater. His opinion was moot, but I doubt he had reservations about invading Japan. That is most implausible.

The estimated trade-off was 200K + American troops (excluding the 1,000,000 + Allied troops) or 200K civilians of Japan. Which would you choose ? I would have chosen 200K of their citizenry. Even then it almost didn't work. It did work and saved millions of lives, Japanese and Allied. Your scenario would have prolonged the war without a definite end in sight.

You know, if the USA nuked 200K people today that nation would capitulate IMMEDIATELY, not three days later after a second bombing, and certainly would not wait another week after the second bombing. Now imagine 70 years ago and Japan not surrendering until a week after being nuked TWICE. As I stated above, I repeat, Had the Japanese realized we were out of bullets the war would have continued.

I do know for a fact that Gen. Almond and fellow generals (as he related) were glad that the bombs were dropped on Japan. He/they had enough of fighting war. Gen. DM's lamentation to Nixon you quote of dropping the bomb was 40 years later, not at the time of the actual events. His convictions may have changed. Sympathy for an obliterated enemy over a passage of time is certainly plausible. And yes, I know that he was vigilant for the signs of peace that war might be averted.

One last matter. You guys talk about war in terms of not hurting the enemy too much if we can help it. That's partly why we stayed in Iraq for the past decade and Afghanistan for over a decade. The attitude of "we want to win the war but only if we do it by a thousand cuts" rather than being blunt and brutal about it is what exposes America to a weakened willpower. It's the nationalized form of passive/aggression. War is meant to stop war. Be brutal about it and get it over with so that we might live our lives peacefully. WWII lasted just over 3 1/2 years for America and was fought on two fronts on opposite sides of the globe. We've only weakened our strength by today's mediocre war efforts. Those wars should have been finished within just a couple of years had we been man enough to do it. We weren't.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

I guess we will just agree to disagree. I don't know if you served in the military or not but I think maybe it gives you a different perspective on things, right or wrong.

I would just ask one question.......right now if you could save the lives of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan to end that conflict by giving up your life, would you?

I'm not sure how to answer that question. If I honestly believed that me sacrificing myself could save hundreds of thousands of innocents, I would be inclined to get my affairs in order and do that. But we don't have those sorts of certainties.

I think the better question would be, if I were a soldier overseas and you asked me would I be willing to instantly kill 200,000 innocent civilians in order to go home sooner and end the war would I say "yes" to that action? My answer would be no. As a Christian I simply cannot go along with such consequentialism.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Man, you libs...

I got about that far in and it told me all I need to know about the weight your responses deserve. My time is more valuable than this.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Titan........I bet if you had been a Marine doing amphibious landings in places like Iwo Jima, Guam, Guadacanal, Tarawa, etc., wading ashore under Jap machine gun fire with hundreds of your buddies falling in bloody waters at your side, many who are Christians, you would feel differently.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan........I bet if you had been a Marine doing amphibious landings in places like Iwo Jima, Guam, Guadacanal, Tarawa, etc., wading ashore under Jap machine gun fire with hundreds of your buddies falling in bloody waters at your side, many who are Christians, you would feel differently.

It's always tempting to resort to whatever means possible to save one's own skin or that of those you love and care about. But what gives me the right to summarily execute hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to accomplish that?

Let me turn the question back on you...say a gunman in your home has you and your immediate family hostage. But the twisted SOB offers you a way out. He has a partner who is in position at a huge outdoor gathering. Thousands of people you don't know are there. And his buddy has a large rental moving truck full of explosives...think Tim McVeigh at OKC. With the power of this explosion and the proximity of people near it, it will instantly kill at least 1000-1500 people. He gives you a choice...a bullet to the head for you and each person in your family -OR- he spares all of you if you give the ok for his friend to detonate the truck bomb and kill all those people near the blast.

Do you say "ok?" Do you have the moral right to do so?

[TheBlueVue 177]

Im not taking sides in this issue because War II is something that America tried to stay out and I dare say the Japanese would have never experienced the wrath of those atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki had they not bombed Pearl Harbor. Im not trying to justify killing civilians but I'd be willing to bet America would have preferred not being drawn into the war in the first place. The Axis of Evil suffered horrible loss of civilian life because they had ambitions of taking over the world. I prefer to blame them rather than carrying the guilt of what transpired subsequent their aggression.

Trust me there are plenty of Japanese who are still bitter. I took my wife to Pearl Harbor and as it turned out, when we were there, we were the only Americans there along with about 3 bus loads of Japanese tourists. It was made clear they would have preferred we weren't there because they, apparently, hold that short sighted victory in great reverence even still.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Titan,,,,,you avoid answering MY simple question by asking other questions and throwing out a hypothetical situation. The example I gave you was real and happened over and over and the "other" people in your case are likely all Amerians, not citizens of a country we at war with.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Blue, it was the same the last time I was at Pearl Harbor and walked over the Arizona. It was full of Japs and I really wanted to tell them to get he hell away. Just old emotions on my part I guess.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Titan,,,,,you avoid answering MY simple question by asking other questions and throwing out a hypothetical situation. The example I gave you was real and happened over and over and the "other" people in your case are likely all Amerians, not citizens of a country we at war with.

No, I answered your question both before I proposed my scenario and actually in the use of the scenario itself. I proposed an analogous situation because the exact same principles of moral decision making would apply. The citizenry of the potential victims is not relevant. Their innocence and status as non-combatants is. But if you'd like to make it easier to annihilate some folks, modify my scenario:

The innocent people about to be killed are innocent Afghani citizens, including women, children, old people, the disabled. Or substitute your enemy country of choice. Would you feel you had the moral right to have someone annihilate 1000+ innocent people to save your and your families' lives?

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

No you didn't really answer my question. You said you didn't know. I guess technically that's an answer, sort of, but a weak one.

Moral decisions in your scenario and in the heat of a war battle are two TOTALLY different things. You wouldn't know if you haven't experienced it.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

"It's always tempting to resort to whatever means possible to save one's own skin or that of those you love and care about. But what gives me the right to summarily execute hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to accomplish that?"

...can be translated as "no" if you prefer an unnuanced reply. I prefer to deal with the complexities though.

And there is no difference in the moral questions either situation poses. You either believe it ok to summarily incinerate innocent people you don't know so that the ones you care more about (or care about at all) have a better shot at living or you don't.

[Proud Tiger 4,261]

Titan...we are obviously on different planes on this issue. I respect your position but just disagree. So be it.

[homersapien 11,393]

Man, you libs...

I got about that far in and it told me all I need to know about the weight your responses deserve. My time is more valuable than this.

Well stated.