"The Morality of Okinawa - Applying the Doctrine of ..." Topic

…"Just War"

"…Why Take Iwo Jima?

Nearly everyone has heard of Iwo Jima and recognizes the monumental icon of U.S. servicemen raising the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi in 1945. The general public understands that this image symbolizes patriotism and valor. Operation Detachment (the code name for the U.S. war plan to invade Iwo Jima) was the largest U.S. Marine Corps operation ever conducted. It cost the lives of over 25,000 Americans and Japanese. However, most people do not realize that seizing Iwo Jima cost thousands of American lives for an objective that never fulfilled its intended purpose.

Since the decision had been made to seize the Philippines first, the Navy made a hasty change in plans to seize Okinawa, rather than waiting for the Army to complete the Philippine campaign in order to then release the ground forces needed to invade Formosa. Formosa was now off the table. Although Okinawa served the Army's purpose of continuing the advance toward the Japanese home islands, the objective of seizing Iwo Jima actually derived from U.S. Army Air Forces strategy. The intent was to safeguard their B-29s flying from the Marianas by providing fighter escort support from Iwo Jima, which lies in the Bonin Islands, approximately 760 air miles from Tokyo.

By combining the objectives of Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Nimitz assured the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The alliance between the Navy, which was seeking to outflank the Army for credit in winning the war, and the Army Air Force, which wanted to prove the case for strategic bombing in order to create an independent post-war air service, satisfied the respective interests of those services. The Marine Corps, however, which paid the heaviest price in carrying out Operation Detachment, was excluded from the decision-making process.

When fighter-escort operations from Iwo Jima failed, the military sought additional reasons to justify that costly battle. It was only then that the emergency landing field argument for taking Iwo Jima, widely accepted by historians for over 60 years, surfaced. In the strategy approved by the Joint War Planners, the justifications for taking Iwo Jima were…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Fighting back against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor cost lives too. Perhaps we should just have let them take the Pacific, and have the Aussies and those living in Hawaii learn Japanese.

Of course, as we saw at Pearl Harbor, doing nothing costs lives too, when your enemy decides to launch a sneak attack on you.

"The Morality of Okinawa"?

Oh, please stop the silliness.

War is hell, so I've been told.

I agree that the tittle is bad… but I have to respect it… what took my attention really was the part they said why don't wait the Japanese failed for lack of food instead to continue with bloody battles… if you read the article… seems interesting…

Amicalement
Armand

Waiting for the Japanese to be starved into submission would have killed millions of Japanese by starvation. I think that whether it was intended or not, everything the Americans did to end the war probably saved ten million Japanese lives.

War sucks, from a human suffering viewpoint. And it's easy to second guess the decision makers after the fact. It's not so easy to be the decision maker without complete knowledge of the situation, the enemy's plans, intentions and capabilities and all the future ramifications of your chosen course of action.

It's an interesting long article (the link). Reminds me of the book "Just and Unjust Wars" by Michael Walzer, which is well worth a read by scholars and amateur historians alike.

It's amazing what drivel people will write to get their doctorates.

Biel is an idiot. He completely misunderstands Augustine and the Just war tradition, and the concepts of Just war and Justice IN War. He strains at gnats trying to remove justification for taking Okinawa, or indeed continuing the war past 1944 when I was obvious Japan posed no threat to the United States.

But his argument falls apart because he does not consider that it was the Japanese who removed their civilian population from the possible protection of Augustine either under the Jus Bellum or the Jus in bellum. Those concepts are based on a clear distinction, understood and tacitly agreed to IN THE WEST that there is a clear distinction between the soldier in uniform who is the representative of and member of the state which is engaging in the war, and the NON soldier or civilian who is supposed to receive the protection and immunities implied in those concepts. These are, however as he says, Judeo Christian concepts.

However when you are going to arm and consider each and every one of your civilians as armed combatants, and indeed arm them with bamboo spears, and grenades, and expect them to launch hem in suicide attacks against an invading enemy, then the state itself has stripped its non-combatants of any consideration of them receiving the protection of non-combatants. Non combatants can receive the protection of Jus in bellum or even Just war ONLY when they stand aside and let the regularly uniformed soldiers in disciplined formations be the agents of state actors.

Much the same way the Islamic states by resorting to terrorism and not using armed forces in regular combat have absolved their enemies, if their enemies so chose, from genocide.

But remember. The idea of Just war, as Biel says is entirely derived from Augustine and others within the Judeo Christian tradition. Those who will not subscribe to it are not covered by it. Therefore, by Augustine's own idea of "reciprocity" namely the submission to a high law, those who will not submit to it are not covered by it, and Japan, as long as it was going to hold a policy of including their non-combatants in the ranks of combatants, was not covered by it.

Remember, central to the Augustinian doctrine of Just war is ultimate responsibility. An unjust war perpetrated by a government (and you have to examine Romans 13 for the idea of authority which is the source Augustine heavily relies on) largely (but not totally, rebounds to the responsibility of the ruler and the government. In a large sense a soldier participating in an unjust war is free from responsibility for that war by him being an agent of "a person set in authority". It is the person who sends his soldiers out to prosecute an unjust war who takes the blame. But there is a second criteria in Justice IN war, in that the soldier is absolved from any order that enjoins him from committing acts against the justice IN war, especially towards non-combatants. If he does, like willingly killing non combatants (shooting women and children for example) those crimes DO NOT just rebound to the leader or government that made the war, but upon the individual soldier himself.

However, again, if the state actor makes no distinction between his combattants in uniform and his general population and considers all of the combattants (his own people), then Augustine would strip these non-combattants of their protected status, because-- they are no longer non-combattants.

One further point. In Romans 13 Paul uses the word "authority." Here he is speaking Aristotle. In Aristotle the word authority means not only rule, but "right rule" or "right to rule". A tyrant had no right to rule and therefore wars perpetrated by Tyrants were ipso-facto unjust. Aristotle makes a clear difference between this "authority" which he held is derived from God (or the light, or the logos) and power, which is the ability to have ones wishes fulfilled. A tyrant may have power but he could never have authority. A right ruler could have NO power but he would still have authority.

No "right ruler" in Aristotle would ever abandon the line between combatant and non-combatant. That would make him a tyrant.

In such a case though, the criteria and dichotomy does not disappear. For the non-combatant who assumes combatant status, he receives the protections of the non-combatant only when he ceases to be a combatant. Thus a wounded soldier who cannot defend himself, or a prisoner, who is no longer a combatant must be treated with full rights of justice in war. That is, he stops fighting.

So no dashing of babies heads against walls or murdering and mutilating enemy wounded, or purposefully masacering civilian populations JUST to massacre civilian populations, as the Japanese and Nazi and Russians did willingly and for that purpose alone, rather inadvertently and unavoidability as a consequence of the terrible promulgation of war.

The Marines are part of the Navy Department, so the Navy speaks for them (on strategy if not on tactics).

If the Japanese leaders had had the sense to surrender when it was obvious they couldn't win, we wouldn't have had to take either island. As usual, it was the "little guy" who paid the price for their leaders' stubbornness and stupidity.

The quoted part of the article is all about the morality of taking Iwo Jima. While I don't think the question is so much about morality, there can be interesting points raised on the wisdom or strategic decision making that lead to the seizure of Iwo Jima.

But to the other point, which I guess comes out in the link:

… what took my attention really was the part they said why don't wait the Japanese failed for lack of food instead to continue with bloody battles… if you read the article… seems interesting…

As others have already noted, the idea that we should have established and maintained a blockade so Japan could be starved into submission would also have stained American honor in history's view. Imagine the gnashing of teeth today's moralists would suffer over more than 20 million Japanese civilians dead of a U.S.-imposed blockade famine.

How did I choose that number? I made it up. But … we have two instances of great famines within 20th century autocratic nations … Stalin's "Holodomor" famine in the Ukraine and Mao's Cultural Revolution. In both cases there are estimates that range up to 8 or 10 million people dying in the famines, and in neither case was the dictatorship at all disturbed by the result. So I doubled the high estimates as a first guess of how many would have to die before a 20th century autocratic government would be at risk of collapsing.

And … add to that as many as 10 million Chinese civilians dying of the famines in China at Japan's hands in WW2 (the third among great 20th century famines). Clearly Japan's political leadership was not "tuned in" to any issues of poor civilians dying as a result of war. When you add the casualties from direct military action, China suffered 15 to 20 million civilian deaths during WW2 at the hands of the Japanese.

This is the second major issue, in my mind, that is ignored in examining the morality of the U.S. military campaign to end the war against Japan. The deaths in China were STILL occurring in 1945. For all the bemoaning about the poor Japanese being clearly beaten by the U.S. in the Pacific … well no one managed to tell that to the bulk of the Japanese Army, which was still occupying large portions of China and killing civilians at alarming rates.

Thousands of Chinese civilians died EVERY WEEK that the war dragged on. I don't claim that preventing Chinese civilian casualties was a key factor in the U.S. strategy decision-making, but there was clearly a recognition that allowing the war to drag on meant a real cost in lives. And there are a lot of factors that were not at the top of the the decision-making process that get dragged in to post-war gnashing of teeth. So why don't we also recognize that EVERY WEEK the war dragged on added to the butcher's tole, and the price Japan paid was small compared to the cost they inflicted on others.

Japan needed to be defeated in 1945. They needed to be crushed, and they needed to be crushed in decisive fashion. As with Germany, the fact that they were overwhelmed, the fact that they were left militarily defenseless at the mercy of the Allies, was a significant factor in the post-war policies that these nations have pursued.

Germany (and Japan) were aggressive militaristic nations for many decades before 1945. In the case of Germany even their defeat in WW1 did not end their nation's enthusiasm for militaristic expansion. But WW2 certainly did!

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Well put Otto and Mark.

Ironic, isn't it. Those two nuclear bombs arguably turned out to be great life-savers and an ultimate anti-war argument that even crazy fanatics have been unable (at least so far) to ignore.

Fingers crossed.

B

Those two nuclear bombs weren't life savers. They were an atrocity. They would have been a war crime for which the people responsible would have been hanged… if only they had lost the war, of course. Victors in "just wars" do not hang.

My father's ship was on its way to the Okinawa picket line when the war ended. He was always extremely grateful for the atomic bombs bringing the war to an end. He was in favour of any and every strategy used to bring the war to a quicker solution rather than waiting out options. He, and everyone he served with, was sure that any delays would only give the Japanese more time to dig in , prepare stronger defenses, and fight to the last man against any invasion.

His graduating class from high school had suffered the highest casualties of the war. Bringing the war to its quickest complete end was the highest goal to ultimately save lives.

I never understand that. So what if it is a single bomb or 5000 bombs? And if you dont want bombs dropped on you dont bomb anybody else.

Owen

Oh, I'm sure many American soldiers were grateful for the atomic bombs, but that's a pretty biased sample. Then again, I'm sure the Japanese civilians who died and many who survived them weren't all that grateful. Many in the world who don't think American lives matter more than the rest of the world weren't grateful either.

Whenever one wants to play the "saving lives" card, a good thought experiment is this: would this be acceptable if the roles were reversed? Say the old scare was true and the Soviet Union invaded the US, and they were winning and the US was about to capitulate, but the Kremlin foresaw the invasion would cost thousands of valuable lives -- valuable, that is, Soviet -- and therefore decided to end it quickly with a few well placed nukes over population centers, in an effort to destroy the American will to fight. Would that have been acceptable?

If this isn't acceptable, and I think it's not, maybe the real argument is "but they were the bad guys!" I disagree the civilian population of Japan were "the bad guys", at least not to the degree of deserving a nuclear bomb (or a firebombing campaign, or whatever). But at least it's a different argument to the more repugnant "the US was saving lives!"

> So what if it is a single bomb or 5000 bombs?

Many during the Cold War cared about this little difference. But you're right: 5000 bombs can be a war crime as well. They get less attention because they don't have the morbid context of trying an experimental new weapon on civilians; instead it's a tried and true, boring weapon.

> And if you dont want bombs dropped on you dont bomb anybody else.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

What were the Russians going to do while Japan was starving?

andrest, it wasn't just US lives saved. British Empire troops were also going to be going into Japan (over MacArthur's objections). And if you wonder how the Japanese civilian population would have fared, just look at any pitched battle in a city from 1914 onwards. Millions of Japanese are likely to have died, especially if they'd obeyed their Emperor's orders to attack the invaders.

There were also the PoW in Japan as slave labour, some fo who were in the target areas. Some died in the air bombing campaign. There were 24 Australians at Nagasaki, for example, and other Allies at both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. They were the survivors of Japanese captivity- that captivity being as harsh in the home islands as anywhere else. There were plans in Changi (Singapore) to execute all the prisoners if Japan was invaded. The shock of the bombs and the consequent surrender meant that plan was not into effect. (Yes, I know the Japanese denied such a plan and that the evidence found was discounted by US authorities during the war trials, but I believe that was "Shogun Mac's" influence again.)

The use of atomic weapons saved lives, probably "only" in the low millions, by forcing Japan to surrender quickly. It also stopped a planned rebellion by Tojo and his cronies when it was leaked that the Emperor was sending out peace feelers.

How anyone could see it as "more right/ more humane/ somehow better" to starve millions of civilians, especially kids and women, by a blockade, or accept the millions that would have been killed in an invasion, to the less than 1 million killed (at greatest estimate) by both bombs and the immediate aftermath is beyond me. Do people prefer that the Japanese be punished that harshly, just to keep their own skins safe from the atomic threat?

Or were the Allies in the wrong for winning? Should we have kissed their derriers and asked forgiveness for fighting back, and winning, a war the Japanese started?

So, in your opinion, its acceptable to kill 20 million by starvation, since everything was being diverted to the military in Japan in 1945, but not to kill 210,000 by nuclear bombing?

I'm always amazed how many people liberals are willing to kill to make themselves feel superior.

The word 'atrocity' is so enthusiastically waved about nowadays by those with an agenda; I hope that is not the case here.

If the scheduled invasion of Japan had been carried through, the consequent death toll and civilian suffering would have rendered Hiroshima and Nagasaki as mere historical footnotes. Japan should actually erect a shrine to both the A Bombs; they not only saved millions of Japanese lives, but also arguably enabled Japanese society itself to survive the war more or less intact.

B

I do have an agenda. It's antiwar and anti nuclear weapons. I'm tired of certain liberties that are taken with history just because "we" were on the side of the victors.

Yes, the Japanese lost. Yes, they engaged in a war of aggression and yes, they were terrible to the countries they enslaved. They committed plenty of few war crimes of their own. They deserved to lose the war. Nobody is disputing this. Nobody is defending the militaristic, racist government of Japan of that time.

However, there are a few lies that get told that need to stop.

First, let's not misuse words: the atomic bombs didn't "save" lives. They cut them short. Atomic bombs do not save, they destroy. Please, do not twist words until they lose all meaning. You do not save people by killing them. You do not "destroy the village in order to save it".

Second, Japan was on the brink of surrender. No starvation was needed. Just wording the terms of surrender in a way they would have deemed acceptable. Some people in the top brass of the US at the time thought so, so it's certainly false that everyone agreed it was either the nukes, starvation "killing millions", or a full-blown invasion.

Third, the bombs weren't dropped to save American lives. They weren't dropped to save the Tommies or Australians either (were they even consulted on this?). The bombs were highly experimental weapons that were dropped on a civilian population in order to a- test these shiny new toys (evidenced by the fact that they were dropped on population centers of dubious military value, and which had been left relatively untouched by the war), and b- to show the Soviets what the West was capable of. The Soviets, and not the Japanese, were the real audience. As such, it's a particularly appalling war crime. Many of the scientists who made the Bomb possible tried to stop it when they realized it was actually going to be used!

I do not expect Americans to admit this was a war crime. It would hurt too much. It's part of their mythos, their "good war", their moment of triumph. It just happened to kill and poison with radiation thousands of Japanese civilians.

Outside the US, however, many of us think it was a war crime.

> Japan should actually erect a shrine to both the A Bombs

Yes, yes, "Japan should". I wonder why they don't? How ungrateful of them.

Another reason the bombs were dropped was to show Stalin that we had them, that they worked, and that Truman wasn't afraid to use them -- probably prevented WWIII.

A weapon is a tool for making your enemy change his mind. As such, nuclear weapons have worked quite well (even when not actually used).

As I said above: "As usual, it was the "little guy" who paid the price for their leaders' stubbornness and stupidity." By which I meant the Japanese leaders.

Question: With all of the current problems in the world today, why are you concerned with the current perception of an event that happened 70 years ago?

The author has an interesting argument about whether the invasions of Iwo and Okinawa were necessary. It is a shame that he decided to throw in the philosophical arguments about unjust war.

donlowry: I mostly agree with you -- showing the Soviets was in fact the main reason. The only nitpick is that nukes might have "probably" prevented WWIII, but they also nearly caused a world-ending WWIII in at least a couple of occasions.

Stryderg: because those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

I tried to read the article but it was extremely long. It appeared the author was arguing that, as soon as a nation was no longer in danger of being overrun they should stop offensive operations. He also seemed to believe that the goal of any defender in a war is "status quo antebellum." The goal of the allies in WW2 was not just to win, but to make sure that the Axis countries didn't have the will to start another war. In general the defender in a war doesn't expect just status quo antebellum, but some form of punishment on the other side for starting the war as well.

andresf: Fair point. Now I'm going to have to back and re-read the article so I can remember what we were discussing.

… showing the Soviets was in fact the main reason.

This is what you may see when you look back through the eyeglasses of today. It was not at all the perspective OF THAT TIME.

The U.S. was doing everything in its power to get the Soviets IN TO the war against Japan. Not to scare them away.

We provided the Soviets with over 100 naval vessels, in order to make it possible for them to conduct amphibious warfare on a scale that would be relevant to the Pacific war.

Project Hulu was the largest single effort to transfer naval vessels from one nation to another in history. It used Cold Harbor, Alaska as the base for many of these transfers. Russian crews were received, trained on the ships they would be receiving, and then they sailed those ships away to Soviet bases.

In this picture Soviet crews (black uniforms) are raising their flags on many LSI's (Landing Ship, Infantry) in June of 1945. The USN continued providing ships to the Soviets through August and into September of 1945.

To suggest that we dropped A-bombs on Japan to scare the Soviets just fails at the most basic level of understanding of those times.

Japan was on the brink of surrender. No starvation was needed.

The Japanese regime was killing more than a thousand Chinese EVERY DAY that the war continued. Often a lot more than a thousand … averaging well more than 10,000 per week. How many more Chinese civilians would you like to have seen murdered to satisfy your sense of morality? 10,000? 100,000? 250,000? 1,000,000? This is the price of "pacifism". You get to claim the high ground on top of the pile of the bodies of those you refused to help because of "moral reasons".

The Japanese military ran contests to see how many civilians individual soldiers could kill. Daily scores were published in newspapers at home. Civilian lives held that little value that they were less important than the ball in a sporting event (ever seen a sporting event where destroying the ball is the goal of play?). Their leaders were ready to see their own civilian population exterminated, if that was needed, to protect the regime.

To suggest they were ready to surrender is non-sense. The Japanese cabinet minutes are available for review. No cabinet member could even discuss surrender in a full cabinet meeting (mostly for fear of being murdered by the militants, if post-war interviews are accurate). Even AFTER the bombs were dropped, even AFTER the Emperor himself intervened in the cabinet and called for acceptance of the U.S. terms, the militants attempted a coup to prevent the message of surrender from being broadcast!

The Japanese were like the proverbial frog in a pot. Just turning up the heat would never get them out, they were going to sit in the pot and be boiled to death. It was only the shock of the bombs, an entirely new type of weapon, that shook them out of their dreams of glorious national suicide.

But of course these levels of detail were not known to the allies. What WAS known was that Japan was still a murderous regime, still bent on war and destruction, and still unwilling to surrender. There were no negotiations between the U.S.(or the Allies) and Japan. There was no credible position offered by the Japanese about what they might or might not be willing to consider. While we were "reading their mail" it was not at all clear what was happening inside the Japanese regime. We knew only that they hoped to bring the war to an end on advantageous terms … well after so much destruction there was no interest in offering them "advantageous terms".

The U.S. was not going to offer "advantageous terms" to a bloody-minded aggressive enemy. Rather the U.S. was going to attack and subdue them by whatever means were available. To suggest that it would have been more moral for US leaders to just sit about and wait for a while counting how many more people the Japanese could kill while seeing if they could make good on some of their military losses, or to launch an invasion that might cost a million allied casualties, rather than to use a new weapon that might end the war quickly is a truly perverse twisting of most concepts of morality and ethics.

Or so I believe. Wasn't there at the time.

But I have visited Japan more than 30 times, and been to Hiroshima. I have read many articles published in English language press in Japan on the Japanese view of WW2 history (in particular on what is taught in Japanese schools). I have a Japanese branch of my family.

I was quite impressed by the number of WW2-aged Japanese in-laws who traveled all the way to California to attend the funeral of my uncle, who had served in the USN in the war and found his wife during the military occupation of Japan. It taught me something about America, and the concept of "American exceptionalism" that is so often derided these days.

It is true that we did terrible things to the Germans and the Japanese. (I have, by the way, also traveled to Germany more than a dozen times.) It would certainly have been better if the German or Japanese aggression could have been stopped without such wanton violence. American military actions since have certainly reflected that preference.

It took a LOT of aggression on Japan's (and Germany's) part to even get us into the war. But as soon as they put their hands up, we stopped. That is, by the way, VERY different from how they (Japan and Germany) behaved. With both of those regimes, the worst came AFTER the surrender of their early opponents.

We showed that, despite the aggressiveness of our military actions, as a nation we did not pursue aggressive war. Our interest was not to conquer and rule, but to remove aggressive regimes and allow those nations to carry forward as prominent, responsible and independent world citizens. That is, by the way, VERY different from how the Soviet Union behaved. With the Soviets, any territory taken was economically stripped, and put under the political thumb of the Kremlin from that point forward.

Say the old scare was true and the Soviet Union invaded the US, and … the Kremlin foresaw the invasion would cost thousands of valuable lives … and therefore decided to end it quickly with a few well placed nukes over population centers, in an effort to destroy the American will to fight. Would that have been acceptable?

Missing from your assessment of comparable morality is the question of who is the aggressor, and what are the Soviet goals for invading the U.S.

To carry the question of comparable morality to a reasonable conclusion, just ask yourself how many average Poles or Germans would travel to Russia to attend the funeral of some non-com from the occupation forces…

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Mark.

I must say I've no wish to excuse the actions of the Japanese military. They were indeed brutal. I do however think Japanese civilians were also the victims of this brutality (even Japanese soldiers and pilots were brutally beaten into submission by their own officers), so in a way they paid doubly: first by their own military, then by the American war effort.

Note that we're not talking about "advantageous" terms of surrender for the Japanese, just not humiliating ones. Terms that would have benefited all of humanity (for example, because they wouldn't have needed either a costly invasion or the brutality of the atomic bombs).

I don't think the Japanese in-laws you mention are more than an anecdote. I'm sure your uncle was a great guy. He also didn't drop the bomb. How many Japanese would have attended the funeral of the pilot who dropped the bomb, or the generals who ordered the strike, and thank them for "saving lives"? That'd be surreal.

As for my hypothetical thought experiment: it doesn't matter what the goals of the Soviet Union would have been. The "to save lives" justification must stand on its own, unless we admit it isn't the main justification.

In my opinion, American exceptionalism and its "manifest destiny" are a lot of what's wrong with the world today. By the way, I have my own opinions of why "it took a lot" to get the US involved in the war against fascism, and how some of its corporate class even flirted with it, but that's a subject for another discussion.

Terms that would have benefited all of humanity (for example, because they wouldn't have needed either a costly invasion or the brutality of the atomic bombs).

Given the nature of the Japanese government, softening the terms of surrender would have had no effect, whatsoever. And may have even strengthened their resolve as such could have been interpreted by the radical elements as a weakening of Allied resolve.

I might add that the A-Bomb was perceived by the vast majority of the military and political decision makers as just another bomb (albeit a much larger one). And its use was seen to be as just another bomb, nothing more or less. The exact nature of it was not truly appreciated except by a very small few (especially with regards to radiation effects).

As for the "saving lives" argument: At the time, that was not a consideration as no one could have predicted the outcome. What was roughly known was that the casualty lists for an invasion (for both sides) was huge. And the same could be said for the longer starvation alternative (which was larger still and would have fallen heaviest on the civilian population). That the bombing shocked the Japanese government into surrender was fortuitous (and even then the radical elements attempted to prevent that) and the alternatives of starvation or invasion were averted. So, in the final analysis, the bombs did save lives. In this case, the effect has far more value than the intention.

I fear your arguments are fatally flawed since you are retroactively applying a post-war perspective.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply Mark.

And I thank you for engaging in thoughtful dialog on what is usually a highly emotionally-charged topic.

As for my hypothetical thought experiment: it doesn't matter what the goals of the Soviet Union would have been. The "to save lives" justification must stand on its own, unless we admit it isn't the main justification.

I strongly disagree. In your, or any, hypothetical thought experiment the goals of the participants matter greatly. At least in my way of thinking.

We all, whether individuals or nations, have a right to engage in violence to stop an aggressor. Every standard of law (that I'm aware of) recognizes this simple perspective. The greater the aggression, the greater the violence that can be used to resist it.

Would you suggest that Poland had no right to try to stop the German invasion in 1939? Or that England had no moral right to bomb the German airfields in France in the summer of 1940?

Let us try a "more pedestrian" thought experiement:

Bob comes in to a house. He shoots Larry dead. Bob says he did this "to save lives".

Impossible, you say? Shooting someone does not save lives, you say? It doesn't matter what goals anyone had, the "to save lives" justification must stand on it's own, you say?

I say if Bob came into the house with the goal of preventing Larry from killing six hostages he was threatening to kill, then Bob did indeed save lives by shooting Larry dead.

You may say we can't actually know Larry was going to kill them. Fair enough. So let us wait and see. How many hostages does Larry need to kill before you would feel Bob was morally justified taking against him?

Or maybe you feel Bob should have used less-than-lethal means, if he objective was to save lives. So Bob shoots some less-than-lethal material into the house … perhaps tear gas. Now Larry kills two of the hostages, and continues threatening the other four. Would you then say at this point Bob would be morally justified shooting him dead?

You may say that Bob should have just sealed off the house and asked Larry to give up, and then waited to see if Larry was going to kill any more of his hostages. That is the equivalent moral position you stake out in the discussion of Japan in 1945. We've made them uncomfortable. There's no evidence that this has reduced their violent behavior. But maybe they really want to surrender, so let's just wait and see. If they murder another hundred thousand Chinese, well that's better than us being bad guys in the eyes of some future teeth-gnasher.

I'd say shoot Larry at first opportunity, using whatever weapon(s) you have at your disposal with the maximum likelyhood of incapacitating him, unless you are certain that he is already determined to cause no further harm.

Sitting and gnashing your teeth over it, while very fashionable after the fact, is a major moral failure at the decisive moment in time.

At least that's my view of the morality at work in this case.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

This taxonomy of who takes what side in this question of the morality of the bomb or invading Okinawa THEN relies on how much you hate the United States NOW.

In the Bob vs Larry scenario, the analogy is closer if Bob is trying to stop Larry from shooting hostages, not by shooting Larry, but by shooting hostages valuable to Larry which he has taken; he kills them until Larry looses his will to keep killing those valuable to Bob.

Perhaps its still justifiable to save lives, that's up for argument, but it illustrates the moral "messiness" of the situation. It the original scenario its pretty clear that if its only a case of shooting Larry to solve the problem(i.e. destroying or deposing the Imperial government) then fire away.

"This taxonomy of who takes what side in this question of the morality of the bomb or invading Okinawa THEN relies on how much you hate the United States NOW."

….. Unfortunately too true.

The argument that Japan was ready and willing to surrender is a canard. The Japanese military leadership were willing to "make a deal" that would end the fighting but leave the existing regime in place; if they could not get a satisfactory deal, they were fully prepared and committed to fight to the very last life for every inch of homeland soil. The degree to which the Japanese leadership were willing to actually surrender outright can be measured by the fact that it took not one, not two, but the incineration of THREE major cities (Tokyo, Hiroshima. Nagasaki) to drive them to the peace table ….. and then only after the epic and unprecedented intervention of Emperor Hirohito who (a) had to survive a military assassination plot and then (b) literally overthrow 1000 year tradition and custom of imperial isolation to directly order the Japanese public to stop fighting.

Agendas, agendas, agendas.

B

Blutarski, it's as much a canard as saying the atomic bombs were dropped "to save lives". They weren't. Others have explained the flaws -- or at least, the moral gray areas -- in that justification.

Japan was on the brink of surrender according to many accounts. At the very least you must admit it's a contentious issue. Here's another canard: that "the Japanese public" would fight to the death, men, children and women, unless their beloved Emperor told them not to. Such a childish view of the Japanese.

Hating the US has nothing to with this. I'm not aware of anyone in this discussion who said they hated the US.

Do you consider an "agenda" any opinion you disagree with?

andresf –

1 – I did not say that the bombs were dropped with the object of saving lives. My exact words were: "Ironic, isn't it. Those two nuclear bombs arguably turned out to be great life-savers". If there is any canard in play here, it is not mine.

A look into the expectations of contemporary planners regarding likely US/Japanese casualties consequent to an invasion of the Japanese home islands dwarf the those suffered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki by more than an order of magnitude.

- – -

2 – Once again, you have misrepresented my statement. My exact words were: "The Japanese military leadership were willing to "make a deal" that would end the fighting but leave the existing regime in place; if they could not get a satisfactory deal, they were fully prepared and committed to fight to the very last life for every inch of homeland soil."

Nothing whatsoever was said by me about any intentions on the part of the "the Japanese public" to fight to the death, only that the Japanese military leadership intended for them to do so. The fact that you placed that phrase in quotation marks to make it seem as if they were my words makes this a "canard" that is most definitely situated in your own court, sir.

- – -

You ask "Do you consider an "agenda" any opinion you disagree with?" My answer to this lame rhetorical device is this: usually no. However, when an opinion wanders so woefully far from the plain facts of the case and when the responses of a correspondent so blatantly misrepresent clearly written statements of another party, the thought does arise.

My recommendation, which I cordially offer for serious consideration, is that in future you would be well served to delve deeper into the history of subjects such as this before offering up opinions. There is plenty of good retrospective scholarship available on this subject if you are interested to investigate.

B

To suggest that we dropped A-bombs on Japan to scare the Soviets just fails at the most basic level of understanding of those times.

I didn't say it was the only reason, but I think it was one reason. Sure, FDR had been trying to get Stalin into the war on Japan -- but I don't know if Truman was that anxious. He may have realized that if the A Bomb worked we wouldn't need Stalin's help, or even want it. Anyway, he sure didn't want Stalin gobbling up more of Europe than he already had. FDR had thought he could influence Stalin, get along with him; not sure Truman bought into that after meeting him.

One has to ask what the moral difference was between killing civilians with A Bombs and killing them with incendiaries that burn their wood and paper houses down -- or killing them with rifles, as far as that is concerned. (Somehow we make a moral distinction between killing women/children and killing men with guns in their hands, even though the men might have been drafted against their will and have no choice about carrying the guns, while the women might be working in a factory that makes bombs, planes, guns, whatever.) And, of course, it's really the few guys at the top, who insist on continuing the losing fight (and who started the fight in the first place) who are the only ones who really deserved to be bombed, shot, etc., but those guys always hide behind all the "little guys".

Prior to the A Bomb, I think all the major air forces (except maybe the Soviets') overestimated the effect of strategic bombing, whereas the ultimate results of WW2 showed that (short of atomic weapons, at least) ultimately you have to have "boots on the ground," to use the current expression.

Blutarski: no need to be condescending. What you call "agenda" I call "a different opinion", without insulting you. Are you one of those guys who think "politics" or "ideology" are bad words?

The matter is not settled as you make it seem. I suggest you consult the available bibliography as well, and I also suggest you take a look at what the rest of the world outside the US thinks of this matter. If this were settled, then we wouldn't be having this discussion, and the article mentioned in the first post wouldn't have been written.

It's typical of a (certain) American mindset to consider every criticism of American foreign policy, past or present, to be caused by "hate of the US". I do not hate the US, and you're doing yourself a disservice if you chalk every criticism of the US to hatred.

As for me: since I'm new here, and I have a genuine interest in the wargamming hobby, I'll refrain from posting in this kind of threads for a while, lest I be labeled a troublemaker.

Sure, FDR had been trying to get Stalin into the war on Japan -- but I don't know if Truman was that anxious. He may have realized that if the A Bomb worked we wouldn't need Stalin's help, or even want it.

I was also under the impression that while the US was initially pushing for Soviet assistance against the Japanese, in the months after Yalta it became apparent that they would not need help from them in order to defeat Japan, and it thus became less desirable to have Soviet involvement in that future victory (Project Hula was, I believe, a pre-existing agreement that the US was obligated to fulfill). This is, however, just a vague memory of something I read somewhere once, so caveat emptor. :)

When fighter-escort operations from Iwo Jima failed, the military sought additional reasons to justify that costly battle.

I don't where this is coming from but it is dead wrong. The VII Fighter Command had three full fighter groups on Iwo and began escorting B-29s till the end of the war. I think they ended up with five fighter groups.

Not only was Iwo needed for a fighter base but the Japanese had fighters there that would attack the bombers on their way to Japan. It was forward a base that gave the Japanese warnings when a raid was on it's way.

That article has some factual errors in it. For one thing MacArthur was absolutely on board with this invasion. It would be the great accomplishment of his career. He would command the largest amphibious invasion in history. I am quoting myself here. I have researched and written a little on the decision to invade Japan.

"On June 18th, 1945 President Harry S. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff met to review plans for invading Japan. The invasion, code named "Downfall," would be in two stages. The first, Operation Olympic, would take place on the southern island of Kyushu on November 1. Phase two, Operation Coronet, would use Kyushu as a staging area for the invasion of the Kanto plain, near Tokyo, on the main Island of Honshu in March 1946.

At the time, the development of the atomic bomb was a closely guarded secret known only to a few top officials outside the Manhattan Project. Planning for the invasion of Japan did not take its existence into consideration until after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Ground operations would be planned and commanded by General Douglas MacArthur. Admiral Chester Nimitz would command all naval forces…"

The JCS meet with Truman on June 18th, 1945 to gather opinions as to whether to invade Japan. The Army Chief of Staff General Marshall was pushing for an invasion of the home islands as soon as possible.

Admiral King for the Navy and the Army Air Forces (Hap Arnold was not present but was represented by his second in command) advocated a strategy called "Bombard and Blockade". King's and Arnold's plan would have the naval blockade intensified. Additional air bases would be established along the coast of China and Southern Korea. Then Japan would be pounded and starved into submission.

King saw no reason to invade the home islands and incur all those casualties. He never signed off completely on an invasion. He finally signed on to it, but only as a last resort if the B&B strategy did not work.

Marshall pointed out several issues with the B&B strategy.

1. There was no guarantee that sufficient bases along the Chinese and Korean coast could be secured and defended from Japanese attacks without a greater loss of life. There were still over a million Japanese's soldiers on the Asian mainland.

2. There was no evidence that the Japanese government was concerned with the suffering of their own people and therefore would see no reason to surrender.

3. The Soviet Union was under obligation to declare war on Japan. It was not clear whether they could bring together enough sea lift capacity to invade northern Japan.

4. There were signs of war weariness beginning to take hold in the country. Already there were calls for an increase in the production of civilian goods like cars. The high casualty rates in the pacific campaign may have the American people clambering for a negotiated end to the war. This is what Japan was banking on.

5. There was some resistance to the transferring of troops from Europe to Asia. Therefore the Army wanted to end the war as quickly as possible taking the capital Tokyo. The B&B approach could take the war to the late 1940s.

As X-Day approached General Marshal was concern with the huge build up of enemy troops in Kyushu. What was once a three to one advantage had slipped away and both sides had the same number of troops. Not a recipe for victory.

He suggested to Mac that he invade Northern Japan instead but Mac was determined to push on with the plan in hand.

Truman approved Macs invasion of Kyushu but held off on the Honshu invasion. Fortunately for both sides X-Day never came. American casualties have been estimated between 600,000 and a million. Japanese casualties were estimated at around 20 million.

On the issue of Soviet intervention. The US needed the Soviets to declare war on Japan because there were over a million self-sufficient Japanese soldiers mostly in China. If they resisted like the Japanese on the islands did, then this war could go on for another five to ten years. So it was imperative that Truman got the Soviets into the war on Japan.

Truman approved Macs invasion of Kyushu but held off on the Honshu invasion. Fortunately for both sides X-Day never came. American casualties have been estimated between 600,000 and a million. Japanese casualties were estimated at around 20 million.

And to add to that, when the US troops landed in Japan, the full scope of the Japanese anti-invasion preparations came to light. Which were far in excess of what the pre-invasion intelligence had anticipated. If Olympic had gone off as planned, the casualty count would have easily exceeded the already very high estimates.

andresf, you have an agendum to push. It's your right to push it. However, it's also my right, and responsibility, and that of others, to disagree with your agendum and to debate it on a public forum.

Like it or not, the decision to use the bomb did have saving Allied lives as one of the considerations. The governments and senior officers of all the Allied nations dreaded the cost in Allied lives that the planned invasion represented. It doesn't gel with your ahistorical conviction the bombs were dropped for purely evil purposes, but it is a fact.

When the Allied occupation forces discovered the Japanese government's plans they discovered that forcing a surrender before the invasion saved Japanese lives as well. It may have been unintentional, but it was a result. I don't understand why that point is always discounted. Are Japanese lives taken by non-atomic means so unimportant?

As for the "Japan was on the verge of surrender", I suggest you read a bit more deeply into Japan, it's political factions and the incidents of 1944-46. Tojo's inner circle had already decided to depose Hirohito (or attempt to), if he kept pushing for peace on terms the government found unacceptable. Many in the army saw the war as being unwinnable, but believed they could force a draw if the invasion proved too costly. They didn't foresee the bomb and were convinced that the Allies were going to have to invade.

Some Japanese were ready to surrender. There was great dissatisfaction with the Japanese government in Japan. It's a pity that the Japanese people against surrender had the guns, soldiers and idiocy to think not surrendering was a great idea.

The "Japanese were ready to surrender" is anti-nuke mythology which ignores inconvenient history, and allows blame to be conveniently cast on the Western (mostly American) leaders who allowed the use of the nukes. As such it's an inherently and morally dishonest political ploy- and I reject it and your (and the "Shame for Hiroshima/Nagasaki" crowd's) argument to have the moral high ground.

Dal.

Dal Gavan,

You and everyone else here have an agenda as well (an "agenda" is merely internet-speak for "a strongly held opinion that I happen to disagree with"), and I've no problem with that. I don't mind disagreement; what I mind is the condescension and the dismissal of other opinions as having to do with an "agenda", "ideology" or whatever. Those are all lazy ad hominems.

The other implication made by someone, that I "hate the US", is plain stupid. The people who think this way are usually the typical right-wing American who equates "disliking past or present US foreign policy" with "hating the US". I don't hate the US (it wouldn't even make sense… the people who made the decision to drop the bomb are not even alive anymore!). I quite like the country, and my American friends are quite awesome.

As for the "anti-nuke mythology which ignores inconvenient history" -- no it doesn't. This is a highly contested issue, especially within the US where it's a touchy subject because it mars their myth of "the good war". In the rest of the world, the view that the atomic bombs were an atrocity is a pretty mainstream point of view, though of course there's disagreement as well. Even within the US it's a contested issue, both by the people of the time (a lot of people higher up, and those who made the bomb possible, thought it was militarily unnecessary and were appalled by its use… read about it!) and those of today.

When I'd say I'd stop talking about this here, I didn't mean because of the disagreement. I wasn't throwing a hissy fit. It's simply because I'm new here in TMP, I have few posts, and if most of them are heated debates unrelated to the hobby, people could justifiably suspect me of being a troll. I don't know the netiquette of TMP, but I suspect engaging in this kind of arguments in my first few posts is frowned upon.

G'day, Andresf. Fair enough. I'm not American, by the way, so I've no barrow to push on the US' behalf. In fact some here would classify me as anti-American. As for condescension, I'm a verbose, pompous old bleep, but it wasn't intended. The ad hominem attack? Add bad tempered to the prior description.

I agree that it's a contentious issue. But if the bomb saved just one digger's life then, in my value system, it was worth it. Forget the morality/reality, a perceived threat was averted. To many Aussies the threat of Japan was very real. And few families in Australia during the war hadn't lost someone between Moresby and Balikpapan, so it's more than just history.

Welcome to the boards, mate. I hope we get to agree, and even disagree, on a few topics in the future.

Dal.

I'm not a Pacific/Far East 'guy', the routine atrocities carried out by the IJA against foreign prisoners and civilians, from quite a wide variety of nations, makes it difficult for me to get into studying the subject. As a result I can only offer an uneducated opinion on a couple or three aspects.

First off, I'm surprised by how often the subject of the A-bomb use comes up on discussion forums in recent years. You were always guaranteed a thread around Jul/Aug time as the anniversaries came by, but it seems a lot more common lately. Within those threads you very often find two diametrically opposed views aired, one that the bombs were the only thing that persuaded Imperial Japan to surrender and the other that they were absolutely unnecessary.

For myself I tend to think that, as we've become more distant in time from the events, it's become easier for the latter viewpoint to gain ground. Through a 21st century gaze, even a late 20th century one, it's very uncomfortable to suggest that the bombing of major population centres, regardless of their military or industrial importance, is acceptable. I think that makes it very easy to advance the case that there was no true justification for launching two nuclear strikes.

The problem is of course that the people at the time who had the make the decision weren't living in a world forged by the experience of WW2, as they were still rather busy fighting it. I'll test my memory now, but I think that as of Jul/Aug 1944 there were still large forces of the IJA in the Far East, China and Korea, and well husbanded reserves in the Home Islands. In short, the IJA still had an awful lot of warm bodies to use up. By mid 1945, the US in particular had been fighting brutal land actions against the IJA for four years, all of which they'd won (Guadalcanal onwards), and every one of which had reinforced the belief that the IJA did not understand the concepts of surrender or submission. Simply surviving was seen as being dishonourable, the aim was to die. By the time of the Iwo Jima and Okinawa landings, there was no suggestion that the IJA was doing things differently, in fact the opposite, as at Okinawa the civilian population were required to join in the suicidal denouement.

The counter arguments over the years have been that the preparations to fight the Allies in an actual invasion of Japan have been exaggerated; that the numbers of troops and weapons quoted could not be fulfilled and it was similar fantasy to Hitler ordering non-existent formations to defend Berlin. There may be some truth to that, intelligence estimates rarely downplay the opponent's capabilities, the truth remains however that there were many tens of thousands of IJA and landlocked IJN personnel who had been deliberately kept aside to meet an invasion. The fact that they could not, ultimately, defeat it, does not mean that the death toll that would ensue from their trying can be regarded as irrelevant.

I disagree with the premise that it's wrong to say using the bombs 'saved lives' because they of course took lives. I think that argument is an attempt to kick away one of the supporting blocks of the 'for' argument, but is itself flawed. It supposes you can't save lives by taking lives. The 'for' argument says that is what happened, because Imperial Japan surrendered before being subject to a land, air and sea campaign that up until the use of the A-bombs was inevitable. From that would undoubtedly stem multiple thousands of civilian casualties, from both attackers and defenders, and depending upon the timeframe to complete a purely conventional campaign incidental effects, such as the destruction of infrastructure to starvation.

The 'against' campaign I don't think truly addresses the effects of an actual invasion of mainland Japan in 1945/46. Such arguments have a tendency to wave that away, because of course the Japanese were on the verge of surrendering anyway; some build upon that premise further, that the Americans knew that, and either rushed to drop the bombs before it became obvious, or simply ignored the metaphorical white flag and opened the bomb by doors anyway, for reasons of revenge, racial hatred, or to demonstrate to their next opponent what could happen to them.

My difficulty with that argument is that Imperial Japan had shown no signs of actually surrendering; they may have appreciated a lull in hostilities, to better prepare their home defences, but they showed no signs of exiting China or the Far East. There are a myriad of supposed communications between intermediaries that are seen as the 'smoking gun' in these theories, nebulous discussions of the possibility of reaching an accommodation if certain acceptable preconditions could be met. As others have pointed out, Imperial Japan effectively wanted to have gone to war with practically all her Far East and Pacific neighbours, visited unspeakable atrocities on captives from said nations, then when it became clear they had no military options, have everyone stop and go back to how things were. It didn't work like that for Nazi Germany, no obvious reason it should have done for Imperial Japan.

I do think in the modern era, the subject has become a very political one. I don't think that the majority of people in the majority of countries think that the A-bombs in themselves constitute an obvious war crime, if only because I doubt many of them are acquainted with the facts. I do think that some putting that argument (no, not pointing at anyone here, thinking more of your scholarly types and national players) find it easy to look at the A-bomb use in isolation, concentrate on it being an unnecessary kick to the head of an opponent already of their feet and unable to defend themselves, and would you look at who delivered that kick! Ignore the facts that Imperial Japan was able to sustain several armies in the field across multiple theatres, had the option to actually surrender at any time, rather than ask for breathing space to negotiate, and had shown no inclination to do anything other than resist every assault launched to date for the utmost length of time and with equal ferocity, and total disregard for the lives of its own soldiers, sailors, and at Okinawa, civilians.

There is no way to know how many people would have died, been maimed or injured during the course of an assault landing and ground campaign to take even one of the Home Islands. The estimates can be argued up or down as you please. Equally, in 70 years no one has been able to prove, beyond doubt, that Imperial Japan would have surrendered unconditionally before the end of the year, without a continuation of the then current air campaign and naval blockade. Nor that peace could have been reached by 5th August 1945, which would mean that the Hiroshima bomb indeed played no part in the surrender decision, or even by 8th August 1945, so Nagasaki at least could have been spared.

It took the Imperial Japanese hierarchy three days, three -ing days between the bombs to decide not surrender, then another six days after the second to fully capitulate. Tokyo had incurred perhaps 84,000 dead in March 1945 through purely conventional bombing techniques. At that point it was apparent that their cities could be annihilated from the air with no means to resist, apart from downing a few bombers, but never enough to prevent the next raid. The only thing that got their attention was not one, but two atomic bombs. Two. I can't see any clearer signal that Imperial Japan had no intention of surrender until their whole understanding of warfare was destroyed, and even then there remained a split in the handful of people taking the decision to surrender, unconditionally.

Gary

The article seems to make the common mistake of taking philosophical concepts and then applying them to concrete events to determine if said events are "good" or "bad".

For specific points:
In the West, we tend to forget that like the Germans, the Japanese were engaged in large-scale genocide and every day delayed is one more day of mass murder.

As far as the nuclear bombs, which these discussions inevitably revolve around, I don't know the answer and neither does anyone else on this forum.
All I know is that at the time, plenty of people in positions of information and power in the US military hierachy and government had reservations about their use.

If the people who DID know had doubts, I think that makes it a reasonable discussion.

Of course, in the end the two conclusions "The bombs were needed" and "The bombs were used for political reasons" aren't mutually exclusive at all.

Those two nuclear bombs weren't life savers. They were an atrocity. They would have been a war crime for which the people responsible would have been hanged… if only they had lost the war, of course. Victors in "just wars" do not hang.

But at least it's a different argument to the more repugnant "the US was saving lives!"

In my opinion, American exceptionalism and its "manifest destiny" are a lot of what's wrong with the world today.

the other implication made by someone, that I "hate the US", is plain stupid. The people who think this way are usually the typical right-wing American who equates "

IMO, these comments above demonstrated to me, that any further discussion from my POV may be a waste of time.

However :

antiwar and anti nuclear weapons.

Who isn't ?

the moral gray areas

What isn't ?

Words that come to mind is – intellectual, academic, polarized, liberal/left leanings … IMO …

Though Argentina had a handful of volunteers involved in WWII. Some would say, "They didn't have much skin in the game." link

And as we know everybody here is entitled to post an opinion. As well as those opinions can be disputed by some …

Legion 4,

I think it's been established I don't mind my opinions being disputed. What I do mind is the lazy ad hominem of claiming I have an "agenda" or "POV", especially when you and everyone else on Earth also have one.

I'm curious about two of your quotes about my alleged POV: that American exceptionalism and the "manifest destiny" is an outdated, discredited idea, and that people claiming I "hate the US" are idiots. Do you think these two claims somehow represent a POV you cannot engage with? So are you saying American exceptionalism is a thing you believe in, and you think if I criticize US foreign policy then I must hate the US?

To be clear, if you believe in American exceptionalism then I have nothing further to discuss with you.

As for Argentina's relationships to fascism during that time, yes, it's a well-known thing. I don't know what you think you've discovered, but this is old news. South America as a whole was somewhat sympathetic to totalitarian governments modeled after Italian fascism and German nazism. After the war, a lot of nazis fled to my country in secret. Notable war criminal Adolf Eichmann was clandestinely abducted by the Mossad from Argentina -- and though the act was illegal, I can't say I regret they judged and executed the bastard!

I'm not sure what Argentina has to do with the topic at hand, though. I've plenty of criticism to level at my country's past and present behavior, but what does this have to the with the US, the morality of Okinawa, or the atom bombs?

I'm curious about two of your quotes about my alleged POV: that American exceptionalism and the "manifest destiny" is an outdated, discredited idea

I was just quoting you ? And no one in recent times ever uses the term "manifest destiny", unless it's in the history books.

As far as American exceptionalism, the USA is exceptional in many ways. But still has it's failings as well.

Do you think these two claims somehow represent a POV you cannot engage with?

I think I just did ?

To be clear, if you believe in American exceptionalism then I have nothing further to discuss with you.

As I said I believe the USA is exceptional in many things. But if you mean that the US should not be held accountable, etc., … I think that is clearly not the case.

Or if you mean that the United States is inherently different from other nations. In many cases it is. Some good … some bad. But I do know many people from around the globe illegally try to get into the US. As well as many want to become a US citizen. Maybe you should ask them if they think the US is different ? They must think so.

, but what does this have to the with the US, the morality of Okinawa, or the atom bombs?

I quoted you … so maybe you should ask yourself that ?

I can say this. At that time in late 1945. The US knew that to invade Japan would cause everybody involved horrendous loses. And the US would be the major invasion force. But as noted, many of the other allies would be taking very high loses as well. Even the USSR starting at the Kurile Islands and the follow on invasion of Hakkido.

So as an old soldier I can imagine the calculations going on then. The Allies take horrendous loses ? To add to the high loses already take on both fronts. Or to not have all those Allied troops die.

It came down to the age old situation starting when 2 groups of humanoid primates fought over a water hole. So many, many centuries in the past.

It's "us" or "them" … In this case over Japan in late '45 … it was decide. Us/we would save our lives at the cost of theirs … Japanese lives.

I know, I know … from your POV, etc., you can't fathom such a heinous thing. But again from my experiences in my youth as an Infantry Officer. If it came down to it … I'd have to save the lives of my men over the enemies'. That was my duty … I owed that to them and their families.

In this type of situation, in this equation … the enemy is "expendable" … but our forces are not. Very, very sad but very true …
I have a tendency to be a realist and pragmatic. Idealistic globalism had no place in the situations in 1945. And coexistence only works if all involved decide to make it work. The Axis Powers in from 1939 to 1945 they did not want to play that game. And 50-70 million paid the price …