Professor Cole wrote, "General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, head of Iraqi intelligence, estimated on Monday that the force strength of the guerrilla insurgency was about 200,000 men. The problem of historical consciousness that today clouds Japan's relations with Asian neighbors began with the emperor's surrender rescript. Firstly, there was a serious concern that if . Against overwhelming US firepower they would not stand a chance on a conventional battlefield. Please check the actual numbers given by the Iraqi Intelligence Chief before repeating Prof. Cole's ridiculous number. I can't speak for the Weekly Standard, but I'd say it's worth noting that the article by Frank is linked by the Chronicle of Higher Education in their column on things to read from the wider press. Please refrain from using meaningless buzz words, as they identify you as someone who derives your opinions from DNC Talking Point memo's or Air America. Answer link aielliot Mar 5, 2018 "To Bear the Unbearable": Japan's Surrender, Part II "A flash of light and the blast slammed me to the ground and I lost consciousness," she said. In fact, two days after the Council agreed to surrender, a Japanese submarine attacked the Oak Hill, an American landing ship, and the Thomas F. Nickel, an American destroyer, both east of Okinawa. He claims for example, that Vietnam and the current war in Iraq were wars of aggression on par with Japans imperial expansion in the years leading up to WWII. Conversely, the insurgents will remain active trying to dislodge the US presence. You do appear "simpleminded enough" to fail to notice that I did not use the words "neo-con" and "traitor" here. Two months after Germany surrendered, Allied leaders gathered in Potsdam, Germany, to discuss peace settlements, among other issues. At this moment, with the war all but over, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian center of Hiroshima; the Soviet Union entered the war; and the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on the civilian center of Nagasaki. When the present writer interviewed Hiroo Onoda for the BBC 'Timewatch' programme, he too repeatedly came back to the theme 'it was kill or be killed'. Mr Tanaka said it was a criminal act under international law. The dawn of the nuclear age began with a blinding, flesh-melting blast directly above the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. On August 14 the Japanese in their turn agreed to this proviso. By failing to offer such nuance, and by inserting needless asides about American foreign policy throughout his article, Bix ends up telling us much more about his own ideology than about the ostensible subject of his article. In the last, desperate months of the war, this image was also applied to Japanese civilians. How could they lead and preserve their system of rule after peace returned? Their object was to reorganize the state, stamp out criticism of the military, and silence liberals and socialists. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. They are heavily compromised by insiders, lack the equipment of their US counterparts and are mostly assigned to security patrol duty to which they are continually subject to ambush. Mr. Clarke- Why did the war in Japan cost so much, and what led so many to fight on after the end of the hostilities? The Big Six and later the full cabinet made Hirohito's decision official government policy. Most historians agree the official version from the US government that the bombs were dropped to force an early surrender and saved up to a million American lives from a bloody invasion is far too simplistic. Shahwani actually said 20,000 to 30,000 fighters in a Baghdad speech (Jan 3, just prior to the election). The use of the A-bomb was inevitable. Insurgent strength of 200,000 in a nation with a population of 25M is not so far fetched. Hirohito, counting on the success of the Foreign Ministry's peace overtures to Moscow, resisted facing reality and never acted resolutely. that Hirohito et al were not self-sacrificing heros who bravely faced up to Japan's defeat, but instead delayers of the inevitable wanting to salvage their own hold on power. (Don't all the best sources?) No wonder that the mystique of the throne, albeit diminished by defeat, carried over into the post-surrender period! I continue to disagree with the "PC" view that the use of a small number of particular descriptive adjectives suffices to define the user's political or philosophical or idelogical views writ large. CEH: Governments that start or end wars of aggression characteristically care little for the safety of their own people. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the initial explosions (an estimated 70,000 in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki), and many more later succumbed to burns, injuries, and radiation poisoning.On August 10, 1945, one day after the bombing of Nagasaki, the . Many historians say the bombings did not lead to the Japanese surrender, and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan two days later was a bigger shock. My advice to you sir; read more history and post less. "Shouldn't they have cared more for the safety of their own people after the war had long been irrevocably lost? Were the Japanese Going to Surrender Because of the Hiroshima Bombing? The surrender of the Japanese was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship USS Missouri. The promise was carried out. The issue here is Bix's historiographical take on the Japanese surrender, e.g. The former with great distinction. Why did Japan refuse to surrender before the atomic bombings of - Quora He never spoke explicitly about 'surrender' or 'defeat', but simply remarked that the war 'did not turn in Japan's favour'. Less than 80 years previously, it had been forced out of two-and-a-half centuries of self-imposed seclusion from the rest of the world, when the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown, and Japan embarked on rapid modernisation under Emperor Meiji. 19, No. Academic historians seem to have been been slow to react to an important work by a non-academic, and I expect to hear more about this book in the future. We witnessed civilian bungling in Vietnam as our military leaders had their hands tied. According to his close examination of the evidence, Japan was not poised to surrender before Hiroshima, as the revisionists argued, nor was it ready to give in immediately after the atomic bomb, as traditionalists have always seen it. Nationalists and militarists alike looked to the past for inspiration. It is true enough that his main point has to do with the determination of Japanese leaders to hold on to power following the war, but he himself introduces the tangents to which others have responded with references to the Magic intercepts. SEP 9, 2021 Podcast Twenty Years Since 9/11: Grey Wars, American Values, & the Future of National Security In the 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, national security decisions have tested the values of American democracy. In just one night, 100,000 civilians were killed in Tokyo. Why Did Japan Really Surrender in WW2? - Sky HISTORY Keiko Ogura was eight-years-old at the time and only 2.4 kilometres from the hypocentre. But if they were to control the immediate postwar situation, the surrender had to be very carefully choreographed. Why didn't the Japanese surrender earlier in World War II? - Quora Interesting how, as you build your straw man, you omit the count and contributions of the Iraqi security forces and how their numbers, commitment and effectiveness has grown over the past 6 months. On balance Bix says no. I come from a military family and although I did not serve after high school in 1978, as I chose college, I currently serve the DAV and have spent many weekend afternoons at VA Hospitals. I believe in a strong, well trained and well equipped military but a military that is used with discretion, has well defined operational objectives and uses maximum force when required. Japan Surrenders, August 10-15, 1945 The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945 Prior to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, elements existed within the Japanese government that were trying to find a way to end the war. Bradbury Science Museum/Getty Images In 1939, physicists Albert Einstein, left, and Leo Szilard drafted a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to research atomic bombs before. This was intended for various reasons. Hirohito's language helped to transform him from a war to a peace leader, from a cold, aloof monarch to a human being who cared for his people. the decrypts publicized by Frank) contradict a side remark of the author here (Bix). When questioned by the local police, he admitted he knew the war had been over for 20 years. They were clearly dissembling. Some people in the world still do not understand the cruelty of nuclear weapons and that they are absolute evil. Your suggestion to the contrary is not supported by anything in the text. Insurgent troop strength is estimated at 200,000 while the US posts 130,000 strong. "Chicken-hawks"? Why didn't the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima? Even today, Hiroo Onoda insists they believed the missions were enemy tricks designed to lower their guard. Yet not everybody was to lay down their arms. 3.) Stalin began to worry that the United States would renege on promises made at Yalta. This surprises me. But John Dower, one of America's most highly respected historians of wartime and post-war Japan, believes a major factor, often overlooked in seeking to explain why Japanese soldiers did not surrender, is that countless thousands of Japanese perished because they saw no alternative. Typically an occupying force should hold a 10 to 1 numerical advantage over it's foe. Why did Japan not immediately surrender after Hiroshima? Why did That would be right here: If the Japanese could suffer a destroyed Tokyo why not the A-bomb? The great classic of Bushido - 'Hagakure' written in the early 18th century - begins with the words, 'Bushido is a way of dying'. Just can't help but point out a rather obvious point of difference here in your fallacious analogy. " Japan surrendered nine days after the bombing of Hiroshima. They avoided words that connoted dishonor like"surrender" and"defeat," and used instead the neutral term"end of the war" (shusen). If he did not act immediately with the Russians bearing down on Japan and the national capacity for protracted resistance nearly exhausted, the monarchy, which he equated with the state, would be destroyed. Your contention that Insurgent troop strength is 200,000. However, the Pentagon and defense contractors such as KBR called the shots in Southeast Asia. Are we reading the same article ? "At this moment, with the war all but over, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian center of Hiroshima; the Soviet Union entered the war; and the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on the civilian center of Nagasaki. Yes, I'm simpleminded enough to point out that your comments are deviod of actual content, but instead rely on emotioanlly empty terms like "chickenhawk", "neo-con" and "traitor". AP. Why is Japan's WW2 surrender still a sensitive subject? He used the Potsdam Declaration of July to remind the Japanese that only more devastation awaited if they held out. It seems to me that Bix is guilty of exactly the same kind Manichaean logic for which those on the left repeatedly and correctly fault the Bush administration: either you are with us, or you are with the bad buys. You made the statement. But the Soviet factor carried greater weight in the eyes of the emperor and most military leaders. By this time Tokyo was already a smoldering heap from months of fire bombing. and found there the Richard B. Frank - Weekly Standard piece Bix explicitly states that dropping the bomb was "militarily unnecessary" and that "the Soviet factor carried greater weight" in Japan's surrender. 7 Things You May Not Know About the Japanese Surrender on - SOFREP They did not surrender after the first atomic bomb due to the amount of time it usually would take to officially declare surrender, which in this case would have been a bit longer considering japan was not so keen on surrender. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. his position that most of Japanese big shots were not eager to throw in the towel prior to Hiroshima. And a few posters here seem to strongly support civilian leaders calling the shots for our military. 'Road to Surrender' revisits the final weeks of World War II As a soldier, he knew it was his duty to obey orders; and without any orders to the contrary, he had to keep on fighting. There are no "rules of debate" here. Kelley Tells Black Working Class History Through Family, Review: J.T. The New York Times is always accurate, right? Revisionists argue that this shows the bombings were unnecessary. Heisler - The UN has given its approval to the US presence in Iraq, as has the Iraqi and US governments. Yo Charles V. Mutschler This was the first time he had deliberately addressed the entire nation, though his voice had been broadcast inadvertently once before, in 1928. Hirohito said something similar in 1946 in the"Monologue" that he dictated to his palace entourage. But for the record the US has spent $800B on this current effort. Bringing troops home as part of standard rotation and shipping them back out is NOT HOME IN THE SPRING! But some cabinet ministers and members of a cabinet advisory committee, composed largely of the leaders of big business, revisited the Potsdam Declaration, arguing that it had been a mistake to postpone acceptance of its terms. Mr. Rodriguez, Of course, no news analysis outlet is "always accurate", not even Economist. 8 clever moves when you have $1,000 in the bank. OK, and by that yardstick neither did Al Queda. Even assuming your interpretation of the decoded Japanese messages is correct, I cannot locate the supposed "conflict" between this and Bix's article. I now see the Republicans attack Paul Hackett an Iraqi Vet running for an Ohio congressional seat with the same vigor. "It is odd for me to support an administration who does not have any leaders, other than Don Rumsfield, who served in the military. In the end, Stalin got a bunch of territory for doing nothing militarily in the East. So, Professor Cole showed his normal contempt for the US military and happily depended on a Western wire service messed-up translation of "al-Sharq" Arabic text. Although I use the term chicken-hawk to describe the gutless wonders within the administration I am by no means a dove. A second bomb followed three days . One point of possible partial exception is that I favor no revision to either the relevant clauses of the U.S. constitution, associated statues or traditional precedents when it comes to Congress declaring war and the president being commander-in-chief, regardless of their degree of prior military experience. How the U.S. and Japan Became Allies Even After Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mr. Ryan, But for all who participated in the last imperial conferences that produced the surrender decision, kokutai meant a sovereign, politically empowered monarchy based on the orthodox State Shinto view of the state, in which the people existed to assist the imperial destiny. Preserving their conservative system of rule with the emperor at the apex was their ultimate end; war termination their political means." . And even after all this, with lots of discussion and even an attempted coup, it was not until August 15 that Japan accepted unconditional surrender. Hiroshima atomic bombing did not lead to Japanese surrender, historians argue nearing 70th anniversary. Granted both Kennedy and Nixon served. Before hostilities with the Allies broke out, most British and American military experts held a completely. Getting back to the article as to why Japan delayed surrender is that the militarist truly believed the Japanese mainland was well enough fortified to prevent being overrun. Debate over the Japanese Surrender - Nuclear Museum Keiko said the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and another at Nagasaki three days later, which killed 70,000 more, were war crimes. not including Weekly Standard) ignoring or covering up such a historiographical breakthrough is not high. For surrender to the Soviet Union would surely have doomed the monarchy, whereas the Potsdam Declaration, which Truman had deliberately prevented Stalin from signing, held out the slim possibility of maintaining it. But only the emperor had the sovereign power to resolve the issue. What the Japanese people in summer 1945 called"the government" meant Prime Minister Suzuki Kantaro and his cabinet ministers, who headed ministries that were rent with antagonistic factions. That was a deliberate decision, indeed, and it's where the moral argument should rightly focus., The key missing link for this thread is presented and discussed below Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese Surrender ""Unite . The world changed forever when a US bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 70 years ago. The south is controlled by 25,000 to 50,000 men under control of various warlords. Of the 100 units planned by Don Rumsfield only 3 are fully operational to date. This is not a small scale conflict but a 4th Generation global war. This panel, hosted by Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal, . Keiko Ogura was eight-years-old at the time and only 2.4 kilometres from the hypocentre. The"ruling elites," denoted primarily the Court Group around Emperor Hirohito plus the participants in the Supreme War Leadership Council, the first group to formally discuss the Potsdam Declaration. What Bix misses is that fact that it is possible for leaders to be wrong without being evil. He and Japan must "bear the unbearable.". But your quote does not prove the earlier claim by Richardson in his post. That is a counterfactual argument that cannot be conclusively proven or disproven by reference to the actual decoded intercepts. Go pedal your defeatist nonsense elsewhere please. The Bushites,"neoconservatives," and Pentagon generals who urge Americans to continue their illegal war and occupation of Iraq until"we win," are looking out for their own political interests and preparing for the political struggle that lies ahead. 609 - 614. On August 6, 1945 the world's first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, wiping out the city centre and killing about 140,000 people by the years' end. This is wrong. You posit a strength approx. This is only the beginning of a major global war as the US and Israel set site on Iran and Syria. Mr. Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins, 2000), writes on problems of war and empire and is a Japan Focus associate. Yet, even though nearly 5,000 of them blazed their way into the world's collective memory in such spectacular fashion, it is sobering to realise that the number of British airmen who gave their lives in World War Two was ten times greater. The Field Service Code issued by General Tojo in 1941 put it more explicitly: Apart from the dangers of battle, life in the Japanese army was brutal. But as shockwaves of the Great Depression reached Japanese shores at the end of the 1920s, democracy proved to have extremely shallow roots indeed. Other, smaller groups continued fighting on Guadalcanal, Peleliu and in various parts of the Philippines right up to 1948. Moreover, he at least partially contradicts himself by pointing out that Truman had deliberately kept Russia from signing the Potsdam Declaration, a fact which kept alive the slim possibility of maintaining (the monarchy). If, as Bix argues, this was the chief concern of Japanese leaders at the time, then the Potsdam terms should have been appealing right from the start. This gross underestimation can in part be explained by the fact that Japan had become interminably bogged down by its undeclared war against China since 1931. "Also, morally it was wrong. The Bush administration steamrolled any military leader who posed questions about the planning phase to the run up of the Iraq War. ), but the main issue raised on this page is actually not the much ballyhood evergreen & unresolvable question about whether the 1945 A bomb drops were justified, notwithstanding the efforts of several posters here to make it so, nor the desire of the HNN editors to cast things in that light, nor the money to be made (by Frank etc) recycling old debates. 4.) It was 8:16 a.m. on a Monday, the start of another workday in . Other portions of that same forum, I was not surprised to discover, indicate ambiguity within the Magic transcripts re Japanese intentions. So it was with Japan's decision-makers trying to end their war of aggression while their subjects faced the real prospect of physical annihilation. Japan was attempting to use the Soviet Union to mediate a negotiated peace in 1945 (a doomed effort, since the Soviets were already planning on breaking off their non-aggression pact and invading). for the future;" and"work with resolution so as ye may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State." Nearly three million Japanese were dead, many more wounded or seriously ill, and the country lay in ruins. in this PBS forum: The other enduring image of total sacrifice is that of the kamikaze pilot, ploughing his plane packed with high explosives into an enemy warship. At least according to Frank, who is a WWII historian, the Magic intercepts do indeed tell us that Truman and his advisors had good reason to believe that Japan had both the will and the means to continue fighting prior to the use of the bomb. After seeing what devastation America was capable of why didn't the Japanese surrender? Japanese fighting men did not surrender, even in the face of insuperable odds. Die, and leave no ignominious crime behind you. Hey, you forgot the use the word quagmire, or mention Abu Ghraib. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Encyclopedia Britannica 3. It was only the personal intervention of the emperor that compelled them to "endure the unendurable" and capitulate but only after Nagasaki was bombed. -- Bix makes superfluous and unfounded claims throughout his article about the role of the US in recent world history. Although one of them surrendered in 1950 after becoming separated from the others, Onoda's two remaining companions died in gun battles with local forces - one in 1954, the other in 1972. All wars are not only bad, they are the same. Not all of us who question the modus operandi in Iraq are against the use of our military in protecting US interests. It was a masterpiece of propaganda packed with terms like"preservation of the national polity,""subjects of the empire," and the"indestructibility of the divine land."
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