Continued from the above.

In my opinion, if Iran is going to be attacked either by the US or Israel or both the strategic planning of the attack would be made up with TWO STRIKES. The first one would be to attack Iran with a devastating “rain” of conventional weapons that would target not only its nuclear plants but also its civilian, military, and religious leadership with the aim of decimating them. If however, its triangular leadership miraculously escapes its destruction and RETALIATES either against the naval and land forces of the US or Israel or any of the other Gulf States, then such retaliatory action by Iran would call a second strike perpetrated either by Israel or the US with nuclear weapons.

http://power-politics1.blogspot.com

My parents, grand parents and all their brothers and sisters were POWs of the Japanese in WWII. I never heard any of them complain about the bomb. In fact whenever the subject came up there were mutterings about actions and consequences.

WWII was by today's standards a barbaric war. It wasn't fought today but 65 years ago. Standards change and you can't judge it's decisions against modern morals. (Strictly speaking all wars are barbaric but that is another story)

Counter factual speculation is just that, speculation. We'll never know what would have happened if other choices were made at the time, no matter how much we debate them now.

The whole history of WWII is full with bluff, blunder and miscalculation. Think Munich, Poland, Barbarossa, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact etc etc.There is simply no way we'll know for certain how soon Japan would have surrendered.

The bombs were intended for Germany. If D-Day had failed (due to bad weather perhaps) it may have been Dresden and Hamburg that have an atomic monument today.

There was a Japanese order to execute all POWs on the 17th of August or the day an allied soldier set foot in Japan, which ever came first. We'll never know if that order would have happened but had it been carried out my whole family wouldn't be here today.

Radiation was no secret in those days. My grandfather was a POW in Nagasaki when the bomb dropped. A week later they were flown to Manila where they were ordered to strip out of their new uniforms so they could be burned (the uniforms that is) because nobody really knew how bad the radiation would be. The POWs weren't too happy about this as they'd been wearing rags for years.

The bottom line is that both sides targeted civilians in WWII. Nowadays that wouldn't be on but we have to look at WWII in the context of it's time.

I'm sure my uncle who was tortured in Changi Prison and the thousands of others who suffered far worse fates at the hands of the Japanese,would feel a lot of empathy for this article.

You weren't there and you don't have a clue to what the real situation was at that moment.How many more allied soldiers would have died and who started the aggression anyway?

Leslie,
I agree with your comment on the part Russia played in the Japanese surrender.
The Japanese had effectively already lost the war and were looking for a way to surrender but we culturally incapable.

The Russians were returning from Europe and preparing to attack Japan from their North and there was a local fear that a conquered Japan would be split in two, like Berlin.

Meanwhile the Manhattan project scientists were rushing to get their two different bomb models field-tested before the war ended.

Politically it was also a show of strength toward the Russians to temper their demands in post-war Europe and was the start of the Cold War.

In the end, our argument was that the bomb ended the war and saved lives and the Japanese had the excuse that they had no choice but to surrender honorably when faced with such "barbarity".

So - everybody won. (Except the citizens of two cities).

Prior to the dropping of the Atomic Bombs the two major battles fought were Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19-March 26, 1945) was the United States capture of the island of Iwo Jima from Japan, producing some of the fiercest fighting in the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Of the over 21,000 Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island, 20,703 died either from fighting or by ritual suicide. Only 216 were captured during the battle. The Allied forces suffered 27,909 casualties, with 6,825 killed in action. Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded the Japanese.

The Battle of Okinawa was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82 day battle lasted from late March through June 1945. The battle had one of the highest number of casualties of any World War Two engagement: the Japanese lost over 100,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) suffered more than 50,000 casualties, with over 12,000 killed in action.

There can be no doubt that it was because the Japanese on Iwo Jima and Okinawa were so fierce in their defence (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, that the atomic bomb on was used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every Allied WWII soldier I have talked to, particularly those who were going to have to fight in Japan were ecstatic that the bombs were dropped and they did not have to fight.

Secondly can there be any doubt that if the atomic bomb was available to the Japanese government that it would not have been used.

Given the above how could any leader not use every weapon at his or her disposal to both win the war and minimise the casualities on his or her side.

Seriously, its sad to see self righteous lefties like John Pilger glean such joy from berating the West over WWII. This new rewriting of history to portray the imperialist and sadistic Japanese as somehow "victims" of some mindless fools with a big bomb is simply nuts. He may have forgotten how the Japanese soldier was prepared to die for the pride of the Emperor and the populus would be forced to do the same. Surrender was not in the Japanese lexicon at that time. Invasion would have led to hundreds of thousands more deaths on both sides.

Pilger is an appeaser like Chamberlain who let Hitler wreak havoc on millions before any action was taken. No, I'm proud of what the Allies did in WWII. It released us from potential servitude to a cruel master. Pilger cannot see the responsiblity of the Japanese in their own demise. This is a strange and selective blindness.

Its the Pilgers of this world who will get us all killed in the long run