I really dont know how invading Japan would be different from invading Germany, and Berlin.
When Berlin was invaded by USSR, they didnt have only real "soldiers" fighting, the germans had children and teenagers fighting too, the "Hitler's youth". Germany was very nationalist, and for propaganda to raise fanatical behavior, they had Goebells, who, when Berlin was about to be invaded, told the populace that any who would raise white flags would have their home, and the whole street thats their home in, set on fire.
You're obfuscating history for the sake of making an argument, and that's never good.
Germans surrendered in droves -- to the Americans and the British. The Russians had made it abundantly clear that they were going to show no mercy. The American experience in Europe is completely distinct from the Russian one... German armies were more than content to surrender in the west after being outclassed militarily.
Not so at all in the pacific, where Japanese showed again and again that they would die to protect their Pacific holdings. Japanese units fought to the last man... but most of all, however ineffective historically, the kamikaze attacks were a huge shock to the American public. Before that, no one could concieve of government that could manage to make and enforce such a tactic.
It's all well and good to know that Hitler wanted Germans to fight to the last man. That's a common sentiment - and you'll find as many cases of people refusing to follow such eleventh hour orders as you will doomed leaders making them (Mr. Davis, anyone?). The Allies' belief and experience in 1945 was that the Japanese had both made 'to the death' their policy *and* represented a population willing to engage in it.
The notion that a 60 year old grandmother would grab a butcher knife and go running after american soldiers is quite surreal to me, I cant see how this can be seen as an argument. For me thats nothing but prejudice. I am capable of changing my mind about this, but not by just telling me that it would have happened without any kind of source.Thats the same as me saying that Americans dont know anything about what goes around outside of their own country, and simply having it be a fact. Thats possibly a obviously fake statement to any of you, but usually its supported by certain unusual displays of ignorance that comes from the USA government from time to me. The time that Reagan was here in Brazil and somehow called us "Bolivians" is a tale told quite often about here. So, even though that statement is obviously fake to you, there are people who believe in it as a obvious truth.
Oh, no, the president twenty years ago called you 'Bolivian', so... what? Internet anti-Americanism is as poorly constructed as it is unfairly thought out.
And yes, the American experience in places like Okinawa was that civilians would fight with knives.
1)Developing that bomb must have been extremely expesive. They just had to use it to justify the expenses. Money is more important than lives, to any government.
No, it isn't. If you believe this, then it's a difference between wherever you're from (not Bolivia, apparently) and the United States. For all the internet-fueld vehemence and teenage media stupidity you've probably convinced yourself is true, Americans very much believe in the principles upon which the country was founded.
If your silly, nihilistic view were actually close to true... then you'd have a lot more to worry about from the global superpowers of the world.
(Incidentally, we have billions of dollars of nuclear weapons stockpiled -- guess you're pretty worried, since in order to make them cost effective we'll have to use them, right? Silly, silly, silly.)
2) If they were to scare Japan off into surrender, I believe one bomb would have been enough. It would be just a matter of waiting then, but, the second bomb was dropped like 3 days after the first one. The japanese sent their surrender five days after the second bomb. This short interval between events, to me, shows that the plan was to launch two bombs in first place. 3 days inst enough time for important negotiations, such as a surrender. 3 days don't seen enough to plan a important mission such as dropping an atomic bomb either.
There was no third bomb dropped because there was *NO THIRD BOMB*. Allied plans for an invasion of Japan continued after Nagasaki and before the official surrender (although your five days isn't quite true - it was made clear very quickly that the military government had changed its mind regarding surrender).
4) Going even further, and I know most of you will just bash me for this, I believe the reason to drop two bombs was because they wanted to test them in live targets. Again, even though in a way I am directly attacking the USA government with this, I would also say any government is capable of testing powerful weapons with live targets, given the right opportunity. My reasoning for this comes from, as I see it, lack of solid reasons for dropping two bombs and that each bomb was made from a different kind of radiactive material. One from uranium and another from plutanium, I dont remember which was which though.
Yes, you do deserve to be bashed for that. You can't figure out the reason (even though it's been stated by both sides in this thread over and over)... so it must be an evil conspiracy? Come off it.
Trinity was proof enough for everyone that the atomic bomb worked.
There is no claim, anywhere, by any serious historian that the atomic bombings were an attempt to test the effects of explosives on human beings -- that's sub-internet level conspiracy stupidity.
5) At the very end of the war, trying to save human lives would have been completely pointless. Millions were dead already, so whats the point? They had a weapon, a kick ass one at that, that truely would give them the upper hand for years to come, or at least towards countries that dont have it. Not only so, but since they had already developed it, bombing Japan would be cheaper than invading it.
They also had an invasion fleet massing off Japan ready to begin Operation Olympic -- it's not some bizarre cost benefit matter as it applies to strategy. What would be even cheaper than dropping an atomic bomb (which was extraordinarily expensive)? Continuing traditional B-29 raids, which were more effective from a military perspective.
The United States had the upper hand in any situation after the war. The British Empire was gone, the Soviets had been crippled to an extent unimaginable at the time... the United States was
the superpower in 1945, atomic bomb or not.
(Furthermore, the US had two atomic bombs - and only two... if they were only trying to 'save money' and scare the world, why would they use them both? This particular conspiracy theory is idiotic and completely contradicts your *other* silly conspiracy theories.)
I don't mean to say that developing the bomb with the sole purpose to attack Japan would have been cheaper than invading it. But, they already had developed it, and so at that moment it was the cheapest decision, and one they could easily justify too "we just wanted to save human lives". What lives? Who's lives were left to save at that point? And why would they care about saving lives, if its expensive?
The American projection at the time was that an amphibious invasion of Japan would involve 50,000 to 100,000 Allied soldiers killed and as many as a million Allied casualties - with Japanese losses being much higher in the process. (An even cheaper decision would, by your approximation, be to do *nothing*. The empire had fallen -- we could starve them all to death. No one would ever think of letting the war go on in that manner.)
(They also did not know at the time that the Japanese government had ordered the home defense to kill the hundred thousand plus POWs they held at the time in the event of an amphibious landing.)
Lastly, I really doubt that bombing the civilian populace was a acceptable practice in the war. It could have become a "needed" practice, as the germans were particually well know by bombing London. But even back then, there were international rules set. This does not blames one side or another for bombing cities, what with factories so close to them, but there were rules. Thing is.. all rules were broken.
No, again, you're applying modern standards to a historical situation. We're talking about a post-Civil War America that's been sold on the idea of knocking out cities as the quickest, best way to end 'total war'. People in the forties had their own idea about what was and was not "moral" in the process of warfare, as already discussed in this thread.
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