Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
No one is denying it. It is an argument y'all are having in your head.
Post Right Wing looniness here
- Thread starter Seattle Husker
- Start date
No one is denying it. It is an argument y'all are having in your head.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
I guess Eisenhower and MacArthur were wrong?
Japan was trying to negotiate to keep their emperor in place. That is what the delay was about. It was a done deal, and everyone knew it.
The Japanese military made it clear they wanted to continue.
We made it clear it was to be an unconditional surrender in which the Japanese were not wanting to do.
We finally got what we wanted.
So Japan was willing to surrender if it could keep its' Emperor. The language of the USA position was that Japan could not keep in power anyone who was part of the regime that propagated the war. Instead Japan must have leadership that reflected the free will of Japanese people.
Keep in mind how many American and Allied lives were saved including several relatives of mine.
Keep in mind how many American and Allied lives were saved including several relatives of mine.
Part of the deal besides keeping the emperor was Japan was not to be tried for war crimes either. Eff that.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
The US gave them the emperor later anyway. So there were no real barriers to surrender other than the US requirement for unconditional surrender.
As a figurehead like the British monarchy. That's not what the Japanese wanted.
Also the Japanese requirement that they not unconditionally surrender, but keep framing us as the warmongering bad guys rather.
And of course, we agreed to letting the Emperor survive after the war and we had knowledge of what everybody's story was going to be and what their roles were in the war. Hardly the same thing as blindly agreeing to it as a condition of surrender.
Yes. Of course, Hitler was already dead, so the military leadership (especially Wilhelm Keitel) signed off on it on behalf of the OKW (the Wehrmacht's high command).
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
They were both unnecessary. No winning army had required that before, or at least for a very long while.
We didn't require it in WWI, and we got ****** for not doing so.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
The point is that requiring unconditional surrender was an innovation. That was at least a very large part of the reason Japan was resistant. It isn't about calling one side warmongering over the other. Both sides were actively killing each other in a war and they were in the process of ending it. We can look at history to understand what was done and why. That is all I am trying to do.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
You can't honestly claim that Germany got a "good deal" after WW1, and that they started hostilities because the Allies went easy on them.
The Japanese were trying to end it, because they were losing. They weren't more peaceful or less aggressive than anybody. In fact, they were much more so. They had just spent the last several years rampaging through East Asia savagely butchering people by the tens of millions for conquest. They eventually wanted to end the war, because nobody wants to get his *** totally kicked. That's how the defeated bad guys get hanged.
They got a deal that was bad enough to seem unfair and piss them off but good enough that they didn't learn any lesson or humility. Furthermore, it didn't beat them down hard enough to keep them from rebuilding and causing a hell of a lot more damage. It's not because the terms weren't tough enough. They were probably too tough. It was because because nobody was enforcing any of it. It was classic meaningless Wilsonian/Progressive grand rhetoric without substance.
The unconditional surrender was required in WWII, because we didn't want that to happen again. So we totally defeated them but in some ways, gave them more favourable terms.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
I actually agree with you on all this. My point once again was that the expectation from decades if not centuries of war leading up to this was that surrenders were conditional.
I agree in part. I would say that the Allies wouldn't have been able to get Germany to unconditionally surrender at the end of WW1. The war was actually at a stalemate. Germany expected a pretty equal peace, but the English continued a blockade killing thousands if not millions of Germans while the negotiation was going on. Due to the extremely harsh conditions, the German people felt betrayed by their leaders paving the way for revolution. It came and we all know who and what happened.
I would also say that even with the conditional surrender if the terms were less harsh, there would have been a better chance for enduring peace. I say that because that is what had happened in the recent future and it removed the hardships that the Nazis used as justification for coming into power and doing the horrendous things they did.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Read this article with quotes from many military and political leaders of the day. Much of what is said about the situation today was manufactured years later. A type of early revisionism but to support state action.
Who Opposed Nuking Japan? | The Libertarian Institute
Who Opposed Nuking Japan? | The Libertarian Institute
They may have been ready to surrender only after their *** had been handed to them, there's no defense for the atrocious crimes they committed against China and US forces. Sure Hirohito starts kissing Mac's *** he gets nuked, but he shoulda been executed.
The Japanese military didn't want peace.
"It is true that Suzuki said at the cabinet meeting on the afternoon of August 13 that the atomic bombs nullified the traditional form of homeland defense. But it appears that the military treated the Nagasaki bomb as a part of the ordinary incendiary air raids. Even after the Nagasaki bomb, and even though Anami made startling assertions that the United States might possess more than 100 atomic bombs, and that the next target might be Tokyo, the military insisted upon the continuation of the Ketsu Go strategy. Anami’s revelation did not seem to have any effect on the positions that each camp had held.
The definition of Ketsu Go
OPERATION KETSU-GO
We would have taken Japan eventually but it have taken hundreds of thousands or millions lives to win on both sides of the ground war.
The generals on our side were doing a lot of talking against the bomb but didn't realize the military (or just ignored the fact) Japan was ready to fight to the last man. Bushido code and all that.
"It is true that Suzuki said at the cabinet meeting on the afternoon of August 13 that the atomic bombs nullified the traditional form of homeland defense. But it appears that the military treated the Nagasaki bomb as a part of the ordinary incendiary air raids. Even after the Nagasaki bomb, and even though Anami made startling assertions that the United States might possess more than 100 atomic bombs, and that the next target might be Tokyo, the military insisted upon the continuation of the Ketsu Go strategy. Anami’s revelation did not seem to have any effect on the positions that each camp had held.
The definition of Ketsu Go
OPERATION KETSU-GO
We would have taken Japan eventually but it have taken hundreds of thousands or millions lives to win on both sides of the ground war.
The generals on our side were doing a lot of talking against the bomb but didn't realize the military (or just ignored the fact) Japan was ready to fight to the last man. Bushido code and all that.
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Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
You obviously didn't read the opinions of many many of those in leadership at the time. Your comment doesn't follow the sequence of events but the later made narrative that was created.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Did you read it? Read the comments. It will answer most of the questions like this.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
There were different factions saying different things on both sides. That doesn't change the overall situation and consensus on both sides. If you read the article you can see what one side in the US thought. You will also see who made up this faction. It is higher ups and military leaders. Obviously, the US went a different route so there was another more powerful faction led by Truman. But even with that it shows the military situation on the ground and that the end of the war progressed for reasons other than strictly military, much of it was political.
Monahorns
10,000+ Posts
Your quotation shows the existence of other schools of thought in Japan anyway. Reread the bold section. The Japanese military wanted to continue even after the bombing. Yet Japan didn't continue fighting. They surrendered when there was still more fighting to be done if they would have wanted to.
Because the emperor didn't want to continue. The fact is that he himself wouldn't surrender Japan until the second bomb happened.
Without the bomb the military and emperor would have continued the war. Operation: Ketsu-Go was going to continue. MacArthur can keep talking out of his *** but Japan's plan was clear.
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So Truman had no generals that said the opposite, huh? Truman did it just for politics? Show me evidence.
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