eric76 wrote:
I don't care what you feel about it -- I think that the analysis that more people would have died if we had to take Japan by invasion.
In addition, if it comes to choosing between the lives of our troops or the lives of the enemy troops or civilians, I'll side with the lives of our troops every time.
As far as a cold war with the Soviet Union, the alternative was not no war, but a full war with massive casualties on both sides. Nuclear weapons, if anything, likely saved many lives by making entering into full scale war so unpalatable.
I think those who want to claim that we erred in not using the nuclear bombs are doing so out of their own political agenda rather than basing it on reality.
Dude, no one is saying we shouldn't have used the bomb (Well Alperovitz does, actually, but he's in the minority), but the truth is, we really didn't do it to avoid invasion. By August 1945 Japan was defeated. We could have encircled the home islands and just waited for Japan to die, except for one thing...
The USSR was gearing up to join the land war in Asia, and after seeing what Stalin did in Europe, Truman wanted to avoid that all all costs.
That meant he needed to end the war ASAP. And, that's why we used the bombs. To break Japan in a single blow and stop Stalin from gobbling up China the way he did eastern Europe.
Remember, China was an ally and pre-commie back then. Truman did the right thing, but they don't teach the real reasons in school. Because everything related to WWII is "Greatest Generation" revisionist horse-shit.
There's plenty of revisionism to go around.
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No man is free who is not master of himself.~Epictetus
21 Mar 2015, 6:13 pm
