You gentlemen may "see no bomb" or see the atomic bombs as "just another bomb" , but the effects speak otherwise. There is a Committee for Nuclear disarmament. Perhaps you've heard of it? There is a "Peace memorial" at Hiroshima. There is a "doomsday" clock. Presidents and political leaders have been defeated and made on the "nuclear issue". I have never seen aORIGINAL: oaltinyay
ORIGINAL: mind_messing
ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
When I worked at the Military museum on Guam , we used to have more Japanese visitors then Americans. I talked with all that I could , about every possible aspect of the war. I recall one elderly gentleman who had been in the IJA saying " as horrible as the bombs were , they saved me. And my country. It gave us "face". We would have never surrendered otherwise. You would have had to kill us all".
Hirohito said Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should We continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.
The bombs most significant contribution was in that it gave the Japanese leadership a convenient excuse to end the war, one that was palatable to their fighting rank-and-file.
In terms of the actual impact on the Japanese leadership, the bombs didn't really register. Yes, an entire city had been turned to ash, but that was hardly a new phenomenon for the Japanese. The fact that the Soviets, the leaderships last straw for a negotiated surrender, had decided to tear up the Neutrality pact and turn on Japan was the real "We've lost the war" moment for the Japanese.
You can see it in the Rescript sent to the troops. I see no mention of the atomic bomb.
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/surrender07.htm
This is my understanding as well. I am on a holiday right now so I cant quote sources but this is stated so in a few places. For japanese it was another bomb...loss of lives.
However Russian invasion was a disaster since it could change the 'japanese way of life'.
a "Russian invasion" memorial. I'm not familiar with the "Stop Russian invasions " movement (Although if there had been a ghost of a chance of it working , Reagan and Thatcher would have thrown everything into it). The point is atomic weapons changed the world , good or bad , in a way that no one ever would have visualized. But the Japanese high command had a ring side seat at that change in August 1945. And it scared the hell out of them (and the rest of the world). And "it's just another bomb" kind of invalidates the "War crimes" aspect of this discussion , doesn't it. It's not a "Tall boy" or a "Grand slam" were are discussing here.
The problem with this discussion is it's less of a "circular argument" and more of a "circular firing squad". [:D]
The atomic bomb=BAD! No one disputes that. War=BAD. No one disputes that either. But the atomic bomb escalated BAD to a whole new metric, and by it's very menace raised WAR to the same metric.
May I point out that "the balance of terror" prevented any war in Europe from 1945 till 1991. There is no similar conditions since the Pax Romani. The very terror of nuclear war kept both sides , if not exactly honest , relatively well behaved.
So I might answer the original question about war crimes with a couple of questions. 1) did Truman have any realistic alternative? 2) did Hirohito have any realistic alternative? 3) What , in 1945 , was a war crime? Not today , not tomorrow, but in 1945. 4) in reality does the term have any real meaning? Or is it in fact constantly changing? And is "fair" to judge our predecessors by todays standards?
