gobiggergoredder
Active member
A million+, but I think it is unlikely you will get a response. The bombs saved countless American lives. This was a culture that was teaching it's women how to kill in an invasion via suicide.Wasn't the estimate at something like a million us troops, for the invasion? I'm merely guessing, but I think that sounds about right.Oof. That's more like a book than a message board post but I will try. It will be extremely abbreviated. Sorry.Give me the long answer: I'm curious to hear it.
The U.S. and Japan were warring economically prior to Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor turned the war of words and sanctions into a shooting war. Japan's invasions in Manchuria and the Pacific islands threatened the U.S. economically and militarily. The well known island campaigns and naval battles followed. (The battles I've studied most closely are the big naval battles at Midway and Leyte . . . love the "crossing of the T" in Leyte Gulf . . . and Guadalcanal/Iwo/Okinawa.) After the U.S. was within airstrike range of mainland Japan the decision was made to apply enough pressure to the people and economy of Japan to make a surrender by the ruling regime palatable. No one really wanted to have to invade Japan. This was the alternative. The pressure worked. Japan surrendered. I have little doubt that if we could have obtained the same result (the end of the ruling regime and the removal of Japan's military threat) with killing fewer Japanese citizens we would have done so.
If you're interested in my opinion, I think the ends did justify the means (firebombing and nuclear weapons). The Japanese government initiated the shooting war and seemed quite willing to continue it through a land invasion. That would have been enormously costly in US lives and money. In this type of war I am more comfortable with the enemy paying that price.
Anyways, are you arguing that the goal of the war in the Pacific was to kill as many Japanese people as possible . . . just for the sake of killing them?
I'm glad they chose the route they did, becuase my grandfather and uncle were sitting in ETO waiting to ship out for the Pacific.
Carlfense picks out 1 word, doesn't answer any questions, then poses another. NOWHERE in anything did I say that there is that the objective in war is to crush a country. I did say we could crush Afganistan, or any enemy for that matter, if our hands weren't tied.
We would rather spare one Afghan goat herder than an American soldier. If that is the situation we are going to put our men in, then get them out.
edit: Carlfense will turn that into that I want to kill innocent civilians.
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