The Hiroshima Myth

marshaul said:

No, they're just both from mises.org. Written at different times by different authors, and merely published in the same place.

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My apologies, your right.

EMNofSeattle said:

Even your article admits the purpose of the embargo was in retaliation for Japan's advance in Asia....

The Mises article also leaves out important tidbits such as that the US refused to have conferences with Japanese leaders, in fact the US agreed to hold summits if the Japanese were willing to negotiate ending the invasion in China, which of course the Japanese didn't want to do. They decided to have some lebensraum all of their own and weren't willing to negotiate that point. Regardless of wether we baited Japan into attacking, their leaders chose to take the bait

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All of that is irrelevant to US security, IMO.

That is to say, the interests served by caring about China and Japanese "lebensraum" were not necessarily those of the American people.

MamabearCali said:

What you want cannot be achieved. You want peace on earth good will towards men....start praying for the second coming of Christ because that is the only thing that will achieve that.

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This is either a false dilemma, or a straw man. While I'm not going to say I'm opposed to "peace on earth and good will towards men", that's not what I'm concerned with. Frankly, I don't much care whether other countries war with each other. Not in the context of what benefits America.

Considering and reconsidering every bad thing that has happened since history began is just useless naval gazing. I won't participate in that. Learn from history, don't be bound by it.

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Which is it? Do we learn from it, or refuse to even consider it because to do so would be "useless navel gazing"?

If you and this author want to naval gaze I would ask this.....what would have us to do. The Japanese refused to surrender. They were committing suicide rather than surrender. It took two citites utter destruction before they would surrender.

Lets say we set the bomb aside. What are our alternatives. We are in a conflict with another nation. it was long in coming, but they started it. We have beaten them back to their homeland. They should be willing to surrender and come to peace talks....they were not. So excluding the atom bomb what are our options. They are going to keep fighting us so we have to keep fighting them. We could invade and cause every citizen to become a soldier and then have to raze the country behind us. We could fire bomb a few more cities....I fail to see how conventional weapons that kill just as many are more moral than nuke. As I see it the world is an broken and sometimes a terrible place. Sometimes there are no good options. Sometimes a leader has to pick hat they think would be the least of the terrible. Two cities destroyed utterly instead of a whole nation.

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You're so unwilling to "consider" (your words) the issue, again you're trapped into false dilemmas. The war could have been avoided in the first place. If nuking Japan was truly the only way to win it (which premise I don't accept), then perhaps it would have been better to avoid it more actively. There is no doubt that the US was preemptively preparing for war with Japan. It's clear that the American people wished to avoid it, in preference to the interventionism/adventurism which put us in conflict with Japan in the first place, and it's clear that their wishes were studiously ignored by men who believed they knew better.

But why learn from any of that, right? It's just useless navel-gazing. Forget the fact that the government is still manipulating the people into war, and/or failing to avoid conflict when the people would prefer we do. We were attacked completely out of the blue, we had nothing to do with it, and there was no possible way we could have avoided nuking Japan and creating the military-industrial complex which even Eisenhower (hardly afraid of a little war) warned us about. Go America!

Now look. You've gone and made me sound like 77zach.

As I said before this author come across to me as conspiratorial and I have never heard anything like what he is claiming before, including from Japanese sources. I am not going to discard everything I have read and studied including primary sources (BA in history) based on one mans opinion.

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The OP's author did sound conspiratorial, but there are others who do not. There are valid points to be made here.

When you studied history, how much modern revisionist work did you read?

This thread is full of ideals like the ones shared by the 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

marshaul said:

When you studied history, how much modern revisionist work did you read?

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The same could be said for yourself. All they're doing in those articles is using their own opinions to describe what happen so long ago.

OneForAll said:

This thread is full of ideals like the ones shared by the 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

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That may well be, but I am not (nor have I ever been) a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

In fact, there is nothing conspiratorial about what I'm suggesting at all. Perhaps I should have left this thread alone, but again there are valid points along these lines. It's fallacious to assume that, because I might agree with someone on one thing, my logic is anything like theirs.

For instance, I'm with the left on my opposition of the death penalty. Unlike most of the left, though, it's not because I've convinced myself it's immoral – it's merely because I don't trust the government to wield the power of life and death (plus, its track record getting it right sucks anyway). It would be a mistake to assume I think like a leftist because we agree on one conclusion.

marshaul said:

That may well be, but I am not (nor have I ever been) a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

In fact, there is nothing conspiratorial about what I'm suggesting at all. Perhaps I should have left this thread alone, but again there are valid points along these lines. It's fallacious to assume that, because I might agree with someone on one thing, my logic is anything like theirs.

For instance, I'm with the left on my opposition of the death penalty. Unlike most of the left, though, it's not because I've convinced myself it's immoral – it's merely because I don't trust the government to wield the power of life and death (plus, its track record getting it right sucks anyway). It would be a mistake to assume I think like a leftist because we agree on one conclusion.

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The way you are arguing this war and how and why we got involved is the same exact reason 9/11 nut jobs say our government took out the towers so they could go invade Iraq. Clarification, I do not nor will I ever fall for that B.S. on 9/11. But then I have to ask myself, if anti-war people would do this in one situation, then why wouldn't they do it before.

OneForAll said:

The same could be said for yourself. All they're doing in those articles is using their own opinions to describe what happen so long ago.

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I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I'm asking about revisionism because it's a somewhat new approach to history, and a great many people who study history do so in a rather one-sided manner. I'm of the belief that historiography is every bit as important (if not more so) than the history itself.

When reading mainstream histories, everything that people say is loaded, and often you can learn more by reading between the lines than reading the lines themselves. There are two sides to every story. For which reason, the revisionist approach has been to focus on where the mainstream view might be making convenient fabrications or omissions to paint themselves in a better light – to try to find what and how much truth there is on the other side.

As it happens, I tend to take a pretty favorable view of America's actions relative to our enemies. That doesn't mean we're guiltless, and we don't have plenty to learn from our own misdeeds. Unfortunately, those misdeeds are all too often swept under the rug.

Note I'm using the term "revisionism" in a non-derogotory sense. I'm not referring to what is better called "denialism", which is the claim that history is an outright fabrication (for instance, holocaust deniers claim it never happened at all). I'm merely interested in the other side of the story as well.

marshaul said:

All of that is irrelevant to US security, IMO.

That is to say, the interests served by caring about China and Japanese "lebensraum" were not necessarily those of the American people.



This is either a false dilemma, or a straw man. While I'm not going to say I'm opposed to "peace on earth and good will towards men", that's not what I'm concerned with. Frankly, I don't much care whether other countries war with each other. Not in the context of what benefits America.



Which is it? Do we learn from it, or refuse to even consider it because to do so would be "useless navel gazing"?



You're so unwilling to "consider" (your words) the issue, again you're trapped into false dilemmas. The war could have been avoided in the first place. If nuking Japan was truly the only way to win it (which premise I don't accept), then perhaps it would have been better to avoid it more actively. There is no doubt that the US was preemptively preparing for war with Japan. It's clear that the American people wished to avoid it, in preference to the interventionism/adventurism which put us in conflict with Japan in the first place, and it's clear that their wishes were studiously ignored by men who believed they knew better.

But why learn from any of that, right? It's just useless navel-gazing. Forget the fact that the government is still manipulating the people into war, and/or failing to avoid conflict when the people would prefer we do. We were attacked completely out of the blue, we had nothing to do with it, and there was no possible way we could have avoided nuking Japan and creating the military-industrial complex which even Eisenhower (hardly afraid of a little war) warned us about. Go America!

Now look. You've gone and made me sound like 77zach.



The OP's author did sound conspiratorial, but there are others who do not. There are valid points to be made here.

When you studied history, how much modern revisionist work did you read?

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The US had been preparing for war with Japan since 1919, and Japan had been preparing for war with the US since that time as well. WWI set us up for WWII. I don't think WWII could have been avoided at all. Japan had interests that conflicted with our interests. Japan was late to the empire building party and wanted to get a slice of china just when empire building was out of fashion. Who provoked who? It is a chicken and egg. But the Japanese invasion of china provoked our response. The Japanese attack on pearl started the war. So you are entitled to your own opinion, but I don't think the war could have been avoided, as Japan was looking to advance their political status by conquest and we were intent on keeping our friendship with the Chinese (which benefitted our citizens) and limiting Japanese empire building.

As for what type of history I studied I could not tell you, as I am not really sure what you mean by revisionist history. When I was getting my degree I was buried in primary sources and journal articles. I did not read many tertiary sources (where i am guessing most of the revisionist history takes place). At one point I was reading over 1000 pages a week of primary and secondary sources. I do not see how Japanese documents (translated) or american documents from that era could be revisionist.

Learn from history certainly, but crying over things that happened 60 years ago to a nation that provoked the attack in the first place is useless. Also even though we may learn from history, I do not expect that we will climb above basic human nature (my comment about peace on earth) and thus wars and conflicts are inevitable.

MamabearCali said:

As for what type of history I studied I could not tell you, as I am not really sure what you mean by revisionist history. When I was getting my degree I was buried in primary sources and journal articles. I did not read many tertiary sources (where i am guessing most of the revisionist history takes place). At one point I was reading over 1000 pages a week of primary and secondary sources. I do not see how Japanese documents (translated) or american documents from that era could be revisionist.

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Nope, but there's a great danger in assuming primary and secondary sources are more reliable, or can be taken at face-value more readily, than tertiary sources. (Not that there's any less danger in assuming those things of tertiary sources.)

Again, I'm using "revisionism" in a positive sense.

Granted, if you're using primary and secondary sources from both sides, you're doing it right, at least as far as that goes.

Revisionism does occur at the tertiary level, but the bias it is designed to counteract takes place in the primary and secondary levels. All the Japanese diaries and military documents in the world don't change the fact that "history is written by the victors".

At its best, revisionism is nothing more than an attempt to "revise" history with this fact in mind.

marshaul said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I'm asking about revisionism because it's a somewhat new approach to history, and a great many people who study history do so in a rather one-sided manner. I'm of the belief that historiography is every bit as important (if not more so) than the history itself.

When reading mainstream histories, everything that people say is loaded, and often you can learn more by reading between the lines than reading the lines themselves. There are two sides to every story. For which reason, the revisionist approach has been to focus on where the mainstream view might be making convenient fabrications or omissions to paint themselves in a better light – to try to find what and how much truth there is on the other side.

As it happens, I tend to take a pretty favorable view of America's actions relative to our enemies. That doesn't mean we're guiltless, and we don't have plenty to learn from our own misdeeds. Unfortunately, those misdeeds are all too often swept under the rug.

Note I'm using the term "revisionism" in a non-derogotory sense. I'm not referring to what is better called "denialism", which is the claim that history is an outright fabrication (for instance, holocaust deniers claim it never happened at all). I'm merely interested in the other side of the story as well.

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You like historiography? The first principal of historical theory in determining whether something is accurate or not is multiple attestations. In other worlds the more sources you have to a certain chain of events the more sure you can be about them. The second principal in determining whether something is sounds historical fact or not is the amount of time that has passed since the event and the documentation of the event. The third test of historical soundness is enemy sources. In this case what do the Japanese say about the bombing? There are other tests, but those pare the big three.

So this article (for the moment) fails even at the first test because it is the first I have heard about all this Truman stuff.

OneForAll said:

The way you are arguing this war and how and why we got involved is the same exact reason 9/11 nut jobs say our government took out the towers so they could go invade Iraq. Clarification, I do not nor will I ever fall for that B.S. on 9/11. But then I have to ask myself, if anti-war people would do this in one situation, then why wouldn't they do it before.

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There is a tremendous amount of irony in this statement of yours. A decorated and famous U.S. military leader once said "war is a racket". A cursory glance at wars across the globe throughout history testify to the accuracy of war being a racket, benefiting the narrow interests of elites. Calling this undeniable fact "liberal" is simplistic and ignorant. Forget WW2, how about Vietnam, Iraq 1 and Iraq 2? Millions dead. For what? People criticizing the "anti-war" crowd are the ones who have explaining to do. They fall for the propaganda time after time after time after time.


“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

― Hermann Goering

MamabearCali said:

WWI set us up for WWII.

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Whether you intended it or not, this is the most relevant statement you could make.

Yes, WWI set us up for WWII. And WWI was every bit as avoidable, and vastly more unpopular, than any of the opposition leading up to WWII. Wilson campaigned and was elected based on opposition to getting involved in Europe's conflicts, intending the whole while to do exactly what he did: plunge us into the middle of it.

Our military involvement was the least of it; it was the diplomatic end to WWI that practically guaranteed WWII.

Wars are what happen when we poke our noses into other people's business. We get to feign innocence and shock that we are "attacked out of the blue", but you can only gore another man's ox for so long before he strikes back: whether it's December 7 1941, or September 11 2001.

KBCraig said:

Whether you intended it or not, this is the most relevant statement you could make.

Yes, WWI set us up for WWII. And WWI was every bit as avoidable, and vastly more unpopular, than any of the opposition leading up to WWII. Wilson campaigned and was elected based on opposition to getting involved in Europe's conflicts, intending the whole while to do exactly what he did: plunge us into the middle of it.

Our military involvement was the least of it; it was the diplomatic end to WWI that practically guaranteed WWII.

Wars are what happen when we poke our noses into other people's business. We get to feign innocence and shock that we are "attacked out of the blue", but you can only gore another man's ox for so long before he strikes back: whether it's December 7 1941, or September 11 2001.

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Saying that we are goring another mans ox and thus were attacked is just as simple minded as saying we were "attacked out of the blue". The facts are almost always much more nuanced with failings on both sides of the fence. Not poking our nose in other people's business sounds great in theory. But what about when we see other people committing atrocities on the defenseless.....should we mind our own business then! What about when you minding your business and me minding mine result in a conflict of interests? What about when someone decided to poke their nose into your business?

Life is much more complicated then any of us like. Foreign policy even more so.

MamabearCali said:

Saying that we are goring another mans ox and thus were attacked is just as simple minded as saying we were "attacked out of the blue". The facts are almost always much more nuanced with failings on both sides of the fence. Not poking our nose in other people's business sounds great in theory. But what about when we see other people committing atrocities on the defenseless.....should we mind our own business then! What about when you minding your business and me minding mine result in a conflict of interests? What about when someone decided to poke their nose into your business?

Life is much more complicated then any of us like. Foreign policy even more so.

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Hey, use YOUR money and YOUR children to go defend the oppressed, and don't kill innocent civilians in the process and call it collateral damage. Don't use MY money and MY kids.

77zach said:

“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

― Hermann Goering

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Amazingly enough, that quote is legit.

77zach said:

Hey, use YOUR money and YOUR children to go defend the oppressed, and don't kill innocent civilians in the process and call it collateral damage. Don't use MY money and MY kids.

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So you are a pacifist? That is fine by me.

Now lets get real a little bit. Drug cartels are on our borders. If people in TX are being brutally murdered should we send in the national guard to help them? Should we defend the oppressed? Should we send Virginia's money and Tennessee's young men to stop the drug lords killing cattle ranchers in TX?

I recommend that if you do not want your children to be a part of our nations response to atrocities that they simply not join the national guard or our military. We don't conscript our young people, they volunteer.

You did not address the other two situations where minding our own business won't work.

MamabearCali said:

Saying that we are goring another mans ox and thus were attacked is just as simple minded as saying we were "attacked out of the blue". The facts are almost always much more nuanced with failings on both sides of the fence. Not poking our nose in other people's business sounds great in theory. But what about when we see other people committing atrocities on the defenseless.....should we mind our own business then! What about when you minding your business and me minding mine result in a conflict of interests? What about when someone decided to poke their nose into your business?

Life is much more complicated then any of us like. Foreign policy even more so.

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I agree that facts are "nuanced" and tend to fall on both sides of the fence. Hearing this come from you, I'm a little surprised at your opposition to some of these ideas.

However, most of this post is a deflection from the valid and, yes, simple point that the more we poke our nose into others' business, the more we give them reason to hate us. All the nuance in the world doesn't make that any less true.

MamabearCali said:

So you are a pacifist? That is fine by me.

Now lets get real a little bit. Drug cartels are on our borders. If people in TX are being brutally murdered should we send in the national guard to help them? Should we defend the oppressed? Should we send Virginia's money and Tennessee's young men to stop the drug lords killing cattle ranchers in TX?

I recommend that if you do not want your children to be a part of our nations response to atrocities that they simply not join the national guard or our military. We don't conscript our young people, they volunteer.

You did not address the other two situations where minding our own business won't work.

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I carry a firearm, so I'm obviously not a pacifist. Every overseas war this government has fought in has been based on lies. The military should be deployed to the border. This is necessary because of the "war on [some] drugs" and the welfare state and Mexican corruption. If the Wehrmacht lands in Jacksonville, or the Chinese in San Francisco Bay, I'll be elisting!

MamabearCali said:

So you are a pacifist? That is fine by me.

Now lets get real a little bit. Drug cartels are on our borders. If people in TX are being brutally murdered should we send in the national guard to help them? Should we defend the oppressed? Should we send Virginia's money and Tennessee's young men to stop the drug lords killing cattle ranchers in TX?

I recommend that if you do not want your children to be a part of our nations response to atrocities that they simply not join the national guard or our military. We don't conscript our young people, they volunteer.

You did not address the other two situations where minding our own business won't work.

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What about ending prohibition? Mightn't that obviate the issue entirely?

Remember what I said about false dilemmas.

77zach said:

I carry a firearm, so I'm obviously not a pacifist

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Well, I am a pacifist and I carry a firearm. Pacifism doesn't have to imply a belief that violence or war cannot be justly carried out in self-defense.

I tell folks that pacifism is meaningless, a trendy affect of hippies and the like, without the teeth to defend peace.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

77zach said:

If the Wehrmacht lands in Jacksonville, or the Chinese in San Francisco Bay, I'll be elisting!

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+1