Final-Fan said:
Rab said:
There is little in the way of "Solid" evidence as no formal investigation by outside authorities were ever commissioned, unlike what we would see in a war crimes investigation
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There are plenty of declassified reports, records of orders being given, diaries, etc. You just haven't looked, have you? You went with your gut and don't need any evidence.
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White noise, no formal 3rd party investigation has ever been conducted, my gut tells me the US is too powerful to be investigated by outside authorities, and my gut also tells me that the US government would never want such a conversation being known
Quotes from those that were appalled by the unnecessary use of the Atom Bomb at that time
GENERAL DWIGHT EISENHOWER
(Supreme Commander of Allies Forces in Europe)
". . . the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."
Ike on Ike, Newsweek, 11/11/63.
GENERAL DOUGLAS MacARTHUR
(Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan)
MacArthur biographer William Manchester has described MacArthur's reaction to the issuance by the Allies of the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan: ". . . the Potsdam declaration in July, demand[ed] that Japan surrender unconditionally or face 'prompt and utter destruction'. MacArthur was appalled. He knew that the Japanese would never renounce their emperor, and that without him an orderly transition to peace would be impossible anyhow, because his people would never submit to Allied occupation unless he ordered it. Ironically, when the surrender did come, it was conditional, and the condition was a continuation of the imperial reign. Had the general's advice been followed, the resort to atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have been unnecessary."
William Manchester, "American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964", pg. 512.
ADMIRAL WILLIAM D LEAHY
(Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman)
"It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons.
"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."
William Leahy, "I Was There", pg. 441.
JOHN McCLOY
(Assistant Secretary of War)
"I have always felt that if, in our ultimatum to the Japanese government issued from Potsdam [in July 1945], we had referred to the retention of the emperor as a constitutional monarch and had made some reference to the reasonable accessibility of raw materials to the future Japanese government, it would have been accepted. Indeed, I believe that even in the form it was delivered, there was some disposition on the part of the Japanese to give it favourable consideration. When the war was over I arrived at this conclusion after talking with a number of Japanese officials who had been closely associated with the decision of the then Japanese government, to reject the ultimatum, as it was presented. I believe we missed the opportunity of effecting a Japanese surrender, completely satisfactory to us, without the necessity of dropping the bombs."
McCloy quoted in James Reston, "Deadline", pg. 500.
HERBERT HOOVER
(former President)
". . . the Japanese were prepared to negotiate all the way from February 1945 . . . up to and before the time the atomic bombs were dropped . . . if such leads had been followed up, there would have been no occasion to drop the [atomic] bombs."
Quoted by Barton Bernstein in Philip Nobile, ed., "Judgment at the Smithsonian", pg. 142.
https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/08/hiroshima-war-japanese
Last edited by Rab - on 18 March 2018