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>It's never really about the victims. And Japan could've >negotiated better terms before the A-Bomb, giving them more >autonomy, the right to maintain a standing army, etc. The >emperor retained merely as a figurehead is different from >that. The use of the A-Bombs showed that the only choices >they had were surrender or annihilation.
The absence of any assurance regarding the Emperor's fate became Japan's chief objection to the Potsdam Proclamation (Pacific War Research Society, The Day Man Lost, pg. 212-214). This is the primary reason Japan would not accept an unconditional surrender -- hardly a reason to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations.
>Well in this case, yes it does. You needed something to >convince Japan to surrender unconditionally, which you claim >could've been achieved solely through negotiation with minor >concessions. I think that's facile and revisionist history.
So officials such William Leahy and Joseph Grew are "revisionists"?
Admiral William Leahy, the Chief of Staff to President Roosevelt and then to President Truman, wrote, "By the beginning of September, Japan was almost completely defeated through a practically complete sea and air blo- ckade." (William Leahy, I Was There, pg. 259).
Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew had explained this to President Truman in person on May 28, 1945. Grew had been U.S. Ambassador to Japan for 10 years prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and was regarded as the most knowledgeable on Japan of any U.S. government official (Leahy, pg. 274).
Don't discredit Eisenhower, he was a general, so I would surmise he'd have some knowledge on the matter.
>If you had some internal >documents from the Japanese high command, your argument >would have some potency.
Japanese telegrams intercepted by American codebreakers indicate that Japan was suing for peace.
Two more days after American air raids followed. On July 11 Tokyo revealed that Emperor Hirohito himself was behind an Extremely Urgent and Strictly Secret message, deciphered by the Americans as MAGIC intercept No. H-1961505 "Since we are secretly giving consideration to termination of war . . . you are . . . to sound out the extent to which it is possi- ble to make use of Russia with regard to ending the war as well."
The U.S. Navy codebreakers deciphered further instructions on July 12 urging the ambassador to inform Molotov immediately of "the Imperial will concerning the end of the war," using these precise terms: "His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all the be- lligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated."
According to David Irving (1995), Wash- ington decided to squelch every sign that Japan was trying to quit. When the International News Service wired on July 7, 1945 that three influential newspaper pub- lishers captured in Okinawa had confirmed that Japan would surrender immediately provided that the United States put in only a token occupation force, the State Depart- ment forbade publication of the news.
Tokyo's urgent telegrams, attempting to sur- render, continued for the next two weeks. The American government many years ago released these intercepts, buried among half a million others, to the National Archives in Washington, DC.
>I know you're not quoting McGeorge Bundy on the most >efficacious way to end a war and force a surrender, are you?
Hold up. You're telling me your focusing one source rather than all of the others I provided. >Trick please.
Coming from Johnny, I'll just ignore this. LOL!
As bad as the internment camps were, they >didn't have any gas chambers.
I didn't mention a word about internment camps. My assertion is when atrocities occur too close to home, the U.S. does- n't want to address them; it's always the "other guy".
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The Rand (Paul or Ayn) philosophy, putting private property rights at the same level of human rights, equates the status of things with the status of human beings. If property is considered equal
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