03-09-2019, 12:58 AM
(03-08-2019, 12:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(03-06-2019, 10:31 PM)Hintergrund Wrote:(03-04-2019, 10:46 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: I've read somewhere that the Emperor wanted to negotiate an honourable act of surrender, and asked the Pope to mediate, but Truman decided to fight to bitter end because he wanted to humiliate Japan and spread achievements of the American Revolution there. He succeeded, but I still cannot approve of the nuclear attack.
Truman knew WW1, he wanted to spare the lives of his soldiers, even if nobody else thought about that.
There were estimates that the war might claim another million lives of G.I.s, and even more Japanese. Even if the Japanese wouldn't decide to kill all of their PoWs or massacre millions of Chinese like they did in the Rape of Nanking before.
Give 'em Hell, Harry!
I agree with you Bill. A demonstration might have convinced Japan to surrender. But it's true the Japanese needed a change in their government, and that worked for them. That would have had to be a part of the deal. Continuation of the militarist regime was not acceptable after what it had done.
That would have required the Emperor to be in attendance under a flag of truce -- and his safe return to Japan and a receptive public.
He would have had to consent to take the journey, which the militarist regime might not have authorized. He would have had to have been kept a safe distance from the blast zone so that he could survive. He would have had to see the blast damage as live "before" and "after" images for himself. Finally he would have had to convince people culpable in war crimes to surrender. Emperor Hirohito was a constitutional monarch, so he did not have the absolute, despotic power that he was alleged to have according to the hateful propaganda from the United States. The military clique could have killed the Emperor for treason, as it knew what it faced in the event of a surrender.
And how does one show the destruction that an atomic blast can do? One would have to do the blast on an existing city, complete with structures. OK, maybe some town (a military base?) completely evacuated, with some mannequins and perhaps some decrepit vehicles and farm machinery as stand-ins.
The militaristic regime was the big problem, and the Emperor was the only person who could have sued for peace.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.