Pensacola Discussion Forum
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

This is a forum based out of Pensacola Florida.


You are not connected. Please login or register

Pensacola Discussion Forum » Politics » Why the US Dropped Atomic Bombs in 1945

Why the US Dropped Atomic Bombs in 1945

+4
Sal
Hospital Bob
2seaoat
Floridatexan
8 posters

Go to page : 1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Go down  Message [Page 1 of 4]

Floridatexan

Floridatexan


http://time.com/4346336/atomic-bombs-1945-history/

We may debate the morality of the choice, but history can show why American officials would have thought the bomb was necessary

President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, nearly 71 years after it was destroyed by the first atomic bomb, inevitably raises once again the questions of why the United States dropped that bomb, whether it was necessary to convince Japan to surrender and whether it saved lives by making it unnecessary to invade the Japanese home islands.

Beginning in the 1960s, when the Vietnam War disillusioned millions of Americans with the Cold War and the U.S. role in the world, the idea that the bombing of Hiroshima—and the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki—was not necessary gained ground. Led by the economist Gar Alperovitz, a new school of historians also began arguing that the bomb was dropped more to intimidate the Soviet Union than to defeat the Japanese. By 1995, Americans divided so sharply on the necessity and morality of dropping the bombs that a 50th anniversary exhibit at the Smithsonian had to be repeatedly altered and eventually drastically scaled back. Passions have cooled as the generation that fought the war has left the scene and academics have turned to other topics, but the President’s visit is bound to reignite them..."

2seaoat



The question should be why we fire bombed Dresden? The truth is that war is hell and when it was out of the box.........few argue or questioned why Truman used it. I have heard in first person from a marine kid who was 18 the horror of the landing on Iwo Jima.........not for a second would I have hesitated to use this new weapon if I were Truman, and I did not possess the knowledge I have now.

Hospital Bob

Hospital Bob

Not every consideration in life has to have a definitive answer to it and this is a good example. There are valid arguments on both sides.

But it's another question which baffles me even more than this one.
Which is this. How can the only country which has ever deployed nuclear weapons against a populace have any authority to dictate to Iran or any other country that they cannot possess one?

Sal

Sal

Truman didn't even know when the bombs were to be dropped.

The timing and targets were determined by General Groves.

And, it was unnecessary.

Japan had decided to surrender when the Soviets declared war.

They were terrified of an invasion by the Bolsheviks.

Guest


Guest

Pffft

2seaoat



Truman most certainly knew and ordered the bombing.....revisionist history is in full bloom.

Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. A Normandy-type amphibious landing would have cost an estimated million casualties. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President. Over 3,500 Japanese kamikaze raids had already wrought great destruction and loss of American lives.

The President rejected a demonstration of the atomic bomb to the Japanese leadership. He knew there was no guarantee the Japanese would surrender if the test succeeded, and he felt that a failed demonstration would be worse than none at all. Even the scientific community failed to foresee the awful effects of radiation sickness. Truman saw little difference between atomic bombing Hiroshima and fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo.

The ethical debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb will never be resolved. The bombs did, however, bring an end to the most destructive war in history. The Manhattan Project that produced it demonstrated the possibility of how a nation's resources could be mobilized.

Guest


Guest

You are apparently unaware of the new progressive talkingpoint revision. Not even flatex keeps up. Pay attention.

Floridatexan

Floridatexan


Historians explain how the past informs the present

David Kaiser, a historian, has taught at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Williams College, and the Naval War College. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War. He lives in Watertown, Mass.

Guest


Guest

I stand corrected... but you still need the malicious intent. Happy hunting comrade.

Sal

Sal

2seaoat wrote:Truman most certainly knew and ordered the bombing.....revisionist history is in full bloom.

Truman stated that his decision to drop the bomb was purely military. A Normandy-type amphibious landing would have cost an estimated million casualties. Truman believed that the bombs saved Japanese lives as well. Prolonging the war was not an option for the President. Over 3,500 Japanese kamikaze raids had already wrought great destruction and loss of American lives.

The President rejected a demonstration of the atomic bomb to the Japanese leadership. He knew there was no guarantee the Japanese would surrender if the test succeeded, and he felt that a failed demonstration would be worse than none at all. Even the scientific community failed to foresee the awful effects of radiation sickness. Truman saw little difference between atomic bombing Hiroshima and fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo.

The ethical debate over the decision to drop the atomic bomb will never be resolved. The bombs did, however, bring an end to the most destructive war in history. The Manhattan Project that produced it demonstrated the possibility of how a nation's resources could be mobilized.


Documents released over the last four decades, including Truman's own diary, say otherwise.

It is revisionist history, and it's always a good thing when history is revised by facts.

2seaoat



Nonsense. President Truman knew about the bomb. He approved the use of the bomb on a city, and he most certainly spent zero time on the flight path, where our plane would launch, and the exact target within Hiroshima......and he absolutely knew about the second bomb, and why it was necessary to drop the same........let us see if our revisionist scholars can get this right......because there was a specific reason, which is well understood.......but I am waiting to be enlightened because I studied the decision in graduate school.

Sal

Sal

2seaoat wrote:Nonsense.   President Truman knew about the bomb.  He approved the use of the bomb on a city, and he most certainly spent zero time on the flight path, where our plane would launch, and the exact target within Hiroshima......and he absolutely knew about the second bomb, and why it was necessary to drop the same........let us see if our revisionist scholars can get this right......because there was a specific reason, which is well understood.......but I am waiting to be enlightened because I studied the decision in graduate school.

Try again, Oats.

What I said, and what is supported by the facts, is that Truman was not involved and was not aware of the targets nor the timing.

Look it up.

What you studied in graduate school in the 50's has been revised by the facts.

2seaoat



http://www.dannen.com/decision/hst-jl25.html

Pure revisionist history if you think he did not know that the bomb was going on cities.....the distinction of military target got quite clouded when we fire bombed Tokoyo and Dresden......is he going to deny that also......sorry, even if an argument could be made that somehow Truman was not fully informed about the first bombs "exact" targeting, he certainly had plenty of time to qualify the target on the second bomb, and he did nothing........it is cover your asz revisionist history, and the President's diary is absurd because you NEVER give forewarning to a military target.......just silly revisionist history.....try to revise the Dresden bombing and Tokoyo fire bombing.........concern for civilians......leaflets and notice.......oh I thought it was a purely military target.....too funny that gullible people swallow that horse chit.

Sal

Sal

Google is your friend.

2seaoat



No logic is my friend. Did the Japanese drop leaflets on Pearl Harbor? Did Ike drop leaflets on the beaches at Normandy before D day. Please....sell that chit to somebody who is illiterate and has not read history. Again......If Truman had made a restriction against a city being targeted.......he had ample time to stop the targeting of the second bomb............utter nonsense created for consumption by tinfoilers.

Sal

Sal

Have fun with your straw men.

What I wrote is very specific.

You can't pour enough mud in the water to obscure that.

I'm seeing a pattern.

2seaoat



What straw man? Please be specific.

Sal

Sal

2seaoat wrote:What straw man?  Please be specific.

Not man, ... men.

Read my original reply ... it was #4.

Then read your rambling, babbling replies chock full of completely unrelated assertions.

Those are straw men.

It's quickly becoming your MO.

Maybe, it's time for a nap, and then you can rethink your approach.

2seaoat



we will issue a warning statement

He put that in his diary......and you think we give warnings to military targets, or that Roosevelt knew the deployment of our carriers at the battle of Midway. We dropped the bomb. We knew it was going into a city. We most certainly knew to not use both of them would mean more Americans would die, and there was a specific reason why we used the second bomb and the President did not object...........oh one who thinks I need google.......tell me what that reason was........or did the tinfoilers not cover that subject.



2seaoat



I hate bull chit

Truman didn't even know when the bombs were to be dropped.

Absolute and utter bull chit........did he know the day or hour.........no, but CIC does not dictate weather or flight conditions he gave the order to drop them, and the innuendo that not knowing the same absolved him of knowledge is the bull chit which does not require straw MEN.....it requires the fricking truth.

Sal

Sal

I see you are continuing to argue with yourself.

Enjoy, but it is unsporting, and you should avoid the low hanging fruit.

Floridatexan

Floridatexan


I will try my husband's take on this...as his dad saw it, who flew planes in WWII. The Germans had conceded and accepted the terms...but the Japanese had not...and according to Professor Kaiser, they would not have accepted the terms. That doesn't absolve the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it does put the situation in perspective...and don't for a minute forget the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese, like Americans, don't like to lose face...keep in mind that we had put Japanese Americans in detention camps and stolen their property. What a horrible time...that I hope and pray never comes again.

Sal

Sal

Floridatexan wrote:
I will try my husband's take on this...as his dad saw it, who flew planes in WWII.  The Germans had conceded and accepted the terms...but the Japanese had not...and according to Professor Kaiser, they would not have accepted the terms.  That doesn't absolve the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it does put the situation in perspective...and don't for a minute forget the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese, like Americans, don't like to lose face...keep in mind that we had put Japanese Americans in detention camps and stolen their property.  What a horrible time...that I hope and pray never comes again.

All the contemporary documentation clearly indicate that the Japanese were willing to surrender as long as the Emperor was allowed to remain - an idea to which Truman did not object.

The Japanese were terrified of an invasion by the Bolsheviks.

2seaoat



The idea the Japanese were going to surrender before the Soviets entered the war.....for those who understand........they entered the war after the bomb was dropped. I am arguing with this argument which pops up every decade that we really did not know that we were going to bomb cities.......please....I am not arguing with myself......just maddening innuendo which piszed me off in the mid seventies when revisionist tried to sell that chit the first time......and like the Kennedy Dallas trip......about once every decade the tinfoilers try again. If you cannot read what you posted, and think straw MEN are my response.....you are missing my point....Truman and our entire civilian department of defense and the military knew exactly what we were doing.

2seaoat



ll the contemporary documentation clearly indicate that the Japanese were willing to surrender as long as the Emperor was allowed to remain - an idea to which Truman did not object.

The Japanese were terrified of an invasion by the Bolsheviks.

Where are you getting this chit? All the contemporary documentation......please do not let me stand in your way.....show us.

Sponsored content



Back to top  Message [Page 1 of 4]

Go to page : 1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Pensacola Discussion Forum » Politics » Why the US Dropped Atomic Bombs in 1945

Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum