The Hiroshima Myth

[marshaul]

Of course like most libertarians your idea of majority rule is the philosophy of an extreme fringe imposing suffering on everyone else but I digress...

lulz. I don't believe in "majority rule".

I believe, among other things, in common law jury trials, where each of 12 jurors possesses absolute and independent veto power on any and every criminal conviction, based on their personal judgement of the law.

Two things rendered, for all intents and purposes, impossible by such a system are:

1. Any sort of "majority rule"

2. An "extreme fringe imposing suffering on everyone else"

Let us know if you ever have anything to say of any merit. As it stands, it seems baseless ad hominem attacks strain the limits of your capability.

 

[mikeyb]

From what I remember in my history classes, the US was an incredibly isolationist country, and the general public did not want to go into war. However, America was in a recession, and throughout time it has been thought (by gov't) the best way to get out of a recession is to go to war. We had the Civil War not because of slavery, but because the South had a very profitable economic contribution to the country. The American people didn't want any part of WW2. But economics come before public sentiment.

Now, to argue the dropping of the bombs...

War is horrible. War should be fought by the idiots who start them. By ushering in the atomic age, the US showed how devastating it is, and let everyone know they (USA) won't stand for being attacked. Heck, Hawaii wasn't even a state.

Do I agree with dropping the bombs? In the context of WW2, and what we know as a public conscience, yes. Was some of the decision affected by revenge? Indubitably. In today's world, should we drop nukes on others? No. Too many others would fling theirs. Call it the Teddy Defense. Everyone has a big stick now.

 

[EMNofSeattle]

From what I remember in my history classes, the US was an incredibly isolationist country, and the general public did not want to go into war. However, America was in a recession, and throughout time it has been thought (by gov't) the best way to get out of a recession is to go to war. We had the Civil War not because of slavery, but because the South had a very profitable economic contribution to the country.

Not even remotely correct. The south was (and still is) way behind the north in every single economic indicator. In fact the Deep South of the civil war was practically how is it in Latin America, a few wealthy families owned considerable property and ran a cash crop economy run by slaves and low wage workers, the north had a middle class with better education, virtually all the railroad rolling stock 80% of the rail roads, 70% of the GDP, about a third again the population..... There was no interest in the doughs wealth, the Deep South was practically a third world country compared to the north...

 

[OC for ME]

Not even remotely correct. The south was (and still is) way behind the north in every single economic indicator. In fact the Deep South of the civil war was practically how is it in Latin America, a few wealthy families owned considerable property and ran a cash crop economy run by slaves and low wage workers, the north had a middle class with better education, virtually all the railroad rolling stock 80% of the rail roads, 70% of the GDP, about a third again the population..... There was no interest in the doughs wealth, the Deep South was practically a third world country compared to the north...

Well stated. My family has been in South Carolina since 1697. on my mother's side. My father's side since 1711. I come from a long line of "wealthy families." One distinction needs to be made though. The south did have a thriving industry, trade. The south at that time had more ports condusive to trade than did the north. imports and exports were the real cash crop of the south.

But, I digress.

 

[marshaul]

From what I remember in my history classes, the US was an incredibly isolationist country, and the general public did not want to go into war.

Close. America has never been "isolationist." Much of our success (formerly) stemmed from our excellent diplomatic and trade relations with most of the developed world.

America was, at the onset of WWII, experiencing much non-interventionist sentiment.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/rand-paul-no-isolationist

The second thing you should know is that “isolationist” was designed as a slur and remains one. No one calls himself an isolationist. It’s always intended to link the target with the ignominious record of Americans in the 1930s who were slow to recognize the threat from Nazi Germany. But the term itself was coined around the turn of the 20th century by the imperialist A. T. Mahan to disparage opponents of American overseas expansion. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Walter McDougall showed, America’s “vaunted tradition of ‘isolationism’ is no tradition at all, but a dirty word that interventionists, especially since Pearl Harbor, hurl at anyone who questions their policies.”

Coincidentally, perhaps, the third thing you should know is that the people trying to create anxiety about isolationism favor an interventionist military policy that has fallen out of favor with the public. After the twin disasters of Iraq and now Afghanistan, they are pawing the ground for more wars in Syria and Iran. Accordingly, they are trying to claim “internationalism” for themselves, so that they can look prudent and modest — in comparison with the ideology that failed to recognize the threat from Adolf Hitler.

 

[marshaul]

The south did have a thriving industry, trade. The south at that time had more ports condusive to trade than did the north. imports and exports were the real cash crop of the south.

But, I digress.

While EMN is correct that the plantation economy in the South looked very much like similar economies in Latin America, he's mistaken in his belief that the South had nothing economically to offer the North, or that it was nothing but slaves and masters. In fact, in many parts of the South slaves were uncommon and economically insignificant.

The South had much more industry, prior to the war, than most folks seem to be aware, although much of it was destroyed by the war. Granted, the North had more.

The South was agriculturally significant, and it had numerous vital hubs of trade/shipping/commerce.

Read about prewar Atlanta sometime. EMN's view is more judgment than history.

 

[davidmcbeth]

From what I remember in my history classes, the US was an incredibly isolationist country, and the general public did not want to go into war.

The south did great trade (cotton especially) before the war with EU and other countries. When the war happened, other countries started producing cotton and hurt the south's export business .. which was big business.

The south thought france might have helped them given the import/export relationship between themselves ... but france did nothing significant. They decided to sit this one out.

The war allowed other countries to take a large share of the south's export business away, even after the war ... creating additional hardships beyond just those that one would expect.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

No government can function effectively without the approval, or at the very least, the indifference of the majority. Of course like most libertarians your idea of majority rule is the philosophy of an extreme fringe imposing suffering on everyone else but I digress....

The Japanese citizenry had high public approval of the emperor, they were fashioning pikes and wooden spears to repel us invasion because they didn't have enough firearms and ammunition.

You can't pick a fight and then complain when you lose. The Japanese attacked us first, and their rationale even shows their stupidity, they were suffering from resource shortages, we embargoed them because of their ongoing atrocities in China and the French colonies. Instead of negotiate peace with china, they invaded us, thus following up one stupid decision with another.

Eric read some independent non government sourced history.

I do believe there were countries (states) in this very land that had slave populations greater than the people who voted in the government, combine this with the abolitionist (south had many more than the north but 1/3 the population) they constituted a majority and I doubt they "consented". Matter of fact most elections today the reality is the rulers are supported by a minority of the population, it is as it always is under oppressive regimes, the threat of force that keeps people from throwing them off.

So what if Japan did, and who can blame anyone for fashioning weapons to repel invaders from their homeland? You mean the Emperor that got to remain an emperor after the war? If your government bombs and kills people in a foreign land whether it be headed by Bush or Obama and a foreign army threatened to invade you......what will you do? Say "Me give up", "because of the indifference of the majority, I surrender".

Last paragraph shows you have done no independent research and where you have you have simply wrote off what doesn't agree with the approved national narrative.

From what I remember in my history classes, the US was an incredibly isolationist country, and the general public did not want to go into war. However, America was in a recession, and throughout time it has been thought (by gov't) the best way to get out of a recession is to go to war. We had the Civil War not because of slavery, but because the South had a very profitable economic contribution to the country. The American people didn't want any part of WW2. But economics come before public sentiment.

That's the problem I shared this same thinking because of "history classes".
The U.S. has never been isolationist, many of the founders actually believed in good will and free trade with all, one Bastiat admired in his writings.
Why didn't the General public not want to go to war....research is your friend my friend....keep asking those questions and look into it, you may be surprised.
U.S. was in a government recession, they did not think it was the best way out of it, and it actually didn't help it at all.
Good sentence on the "civil war" although it really wasn't a civil war.
Americans were tricked into WWII, economics had little to do with it and the war made it worse, these are arguments made by government to justify their actions.

Now, to argue the dropping of the bombs...

War is horrible. War should be fought by the idiots who start them. By ushering in the atomic age, the US showed how devastating it is, and let everyone know they (USA) won't stand for being attacked. Heck, Hawaii wasn't even a state.

Do I agree with dropping the bombs? In the context of WW2, and what we know as a public conscience, yes. Was some of the decision affected by revenge? Indubitably. In today's world, should we drop nukes on others? No. Too many others would fling theirs. Call it the Teddy Defense. Everyone has a big stick now.

So would you agree with our soldiers marching into an unarmed city and dousing civilians men, women children many who may even oppose the actions of their government with gasoline and lighting them on fire, to make their government comply to an unconditional surrender?

The lines of "who" started the war is not so black and white much of the history of these conflicts go back even to the Imperialist actions of larger countries, U.S.A., Russian , Japan and the European countries, from before the 20th century,

Spanish American War ( another war manipulated by the government), Russo-Japanese War (one the Imperialist T. Roosevelt involved himself in).....etc...

 

[carolina guy]

Eric read some independent non government sourced history.

I do believe there were countries (states) in this very land that had slave populations greater than the people who voted in the government, combine this with the abolitionist (south had many more than the north but 1/3 the population) they constituted a majority and I doubt they "consented". Matter of fact most elections today the reality is the rulers are supported by a minority of the population, it is as it always is under oppressive regimes, the threat of force that keeps people from throwing them off.

So what if Japan did, and who can blame anyone for fashioning weapons to repel invaders from their homeland? You mean the Emperor that got to remain an emperor after the war? If your government bombs and kills people in a foreign land whether it be headed by Bush or Obama and a foreign army threatened to invade you......what will you do? Say "Me give up", "because of the indifference of the majority, I surrender".

Last paragraph shows you have done no independent research and where you have you have simply wrote off what doesn't agree with the approved national narrative.



That's the problem I shared this same thinking because of "history classes".
The U.S. has never been isolationist, many of the founders actually believed in good will and free trade with all, one Bastiat admired in his writings.
Why didn't the General public not want to go to war....research is your friend my friend....keep asking those questions and look into it, you may be surprised.
U.S. was in a government recession, they did not think it was the best way out of it, and it actually didn't help it at all.
Good sentence on the "civil war" although it really wasn't a civil war.
Americans were tricked into WWII, economics had little to do with it and the war made it worse, these are arguments made by government to justify their actions.



So would you agree with our soldiers marching into an unarmed city and dousing civilians men, women children many who may even oppose the actions of their government with gasoline and lighting them on fire, to make their government comply to an unconditional surrender?

The lines of "who" started the war is not so black and white much of the history of these conflicts go back even to the Imperialist actions of larger countries, U.S.A., Russian , Japan and the European countries, from before the 20th century,

Spanish American War ( another war manipulated by the government), Russo-Japanese War (one the Imperialist T. Roosevelt involved himself in).....etc...

How about the last 100+ years of Euro/American involvement in the Middle East?

 

[sudden valley gunner]

How about the last 100+ years of Euro/American involvement in the Middle East?

Of course, it's all a twisted cluster phk of power games and machinations....the truth is rarely the state approved message.

 

[marshaul]

Up until Sherman (no doubt one of EMN's personal heroes), it was universally considered a war crime to burn the homes and small businesses of the populace. While armies historically had to "live off the land" (also called being sacked when you're on the wrong end of it), many even considered it a war crime to burn crops (rather than simply consuming all of them).

This was a criticism levied against the British, and that it was largely false or exaggerated didn't stop Mel Gibson from playing it to the max two hundred years later.

Needless to say, mass executions or campaigns directed at the civilian populace (to kill them) were also considered a war crime (they still are when anybody else does it).

Yet, somehow, all this had to change to hear justifications like the crap spewing from EMN's mouth. The firebombing of much of Japan and Europe was specifically justified as attacks on industrial centers – attacks which just so happened to cause massive collateral damage.

But the nukes couldn't reasonably be said to be tactical weapons, directed at specific military targets. They were weapons of fear, designed to specifically attack the populace.

Throw in a half-century of misguided jingoism and American exceptionalism (of the wrong sort), and suddenly the Japanese brought it on themselves by not standing up to an Imperial dictatorship. And it's their fault, anyway, because they were prepared to defend their country against invasion.

EMN, I really want to know something. Hypothetical scenario: America is being run by a tyrant; Obama II (the son of Bush II and Obama I) has stripped us of our rights, and is raping and torturing Mexican women as we take over their country. (Maybe he's carrying out "the will of the majority", but in this scenario you personally disagree with his actions.) Anyway, somehow Mexico allies with the EU, and they or the UN or someone decides to invade America to stop Obama II. What do you, EMN, do? Do you take up arms to repel the invasion? Or do you welcome foreign rule, because you hate Obama II even more?

I truly hope, EMN, that one day you mature and develop empathy, which you clearly lack and which is the defining characteristic of adulthood.

 

[MamabearCali]

I found the article to be inconsistent with everything else I have read so without much more evidence than it gives I will have to set it aside. That does not invalidate what he says.....it just means that without more evidence I cannot set one article above the rest of my historical knowledge.

As for the humanity and inhumanity of the atom bombs.....it was war. Japan had done terrible things. Their armies committed unspeakable horrors in Manchuria. It was a war that both side had been thinking would happen for the past 20 years. War is terrible. It is awful. The atom bombs as terrible as they were, did less damage to the whole of Japan than an invasion would have. It is horrible what happened. Horrible things happen in war. Do you think for one second had Japan had the technology they would have hesitated to do the same to Honolulu or to anchorage? I am certain they would have dropped the bombs too with much less mercy than we had after their surrender.

We were determined to win that war and so we did. It is not the first or the last time terrible things happened in war. If you think that it was somehow more horrible than what other cultures have done you have not studied history much. Entire towns and even entire countries have been slaughtered before in war and in history. I happen to know of an entire culture that was utterly destroyed on the whim of a dying despot.

Japan is not angry over this. They stopped our govt from apologizing. We need to get over it and move on. We have much bigger fish to fry than 60 year old controversies.

 

[marshaul]

The post above represents, to me, the very attitude which is worth addressing and correcting.

Yes, war is horrible. Yes, every country has done terrible things during war.

That doesn't mean it's too late to grow up. There are many lessons to be learned from the excesses of the past, and the failure to learn those lessons (and to discard offhand any attempts to discuss them as "not what I learned in school") leads to excesses in the "wars" we perpetrate today.

There's no reason humanity needs to be stuck repeating history forever.

I'm not interesting in a sympathy-fest for the Japanese. I'm interested in achieving consensus that what we did was unnecessary and, more pertinently wrong. I don't need to feel bad about that - I didn't do it. I can still opine that it should never happen again.

Like any war, there are two sides to the story. In this case, there are a few dozens sides. One of those sides is that the war with Japan was the culmination of two empires headbutting, in both cases at the expense of their people. In both cases the people were manipulated into a war by outside parties, and were forced to shoulder the burden to the benefit of those parties.

There's no reason we can't learn a few lessons from that. Jingoism isn't that important.

Here's a more scholarly revisionist approach:

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Revisionism is the result of recognizing that history is written by the victors, and there's often something to learn by considering the other side. That's all I'm after.

 

[stealthyeliminator]

http://mises.org/daily/4217/

WW2 is a sacred cow of statist neocons. Interestingly enough for libertarians, fleshing this issue out gives a sound answer to anti-gun nuts question: "Where do you draw the line? Should you be allowed to own nukes?" My answer is no, killing indiscriminately is never right and goes against the non-aggression principle. Where do you draw the line? How about this: If it's too dangerous for me to own it, then it's too dangerous for the government to have it.

I've found it interesting how most people in the US almost automatically accept that the US government can somehow rightfully impose restrictions on and police the rest of the world (and it's own people) in their development and use of nuclear weapons (or power for other uses than battle) since they're so dangerous, when it's the US government that is the only one in the world which has shown such little restraint as to actually use nuclear weapons against another country in warfare. Wouldn't it be more right for the rest of the world to be policing the US' use of nuclear weapons or energy?

 

[OneForAll]

This thread is pointless, everyone has there views and they are not going to change.

 

[MamabearCali]

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.

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.

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. I

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.

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.

 

[EMNofSeattle]

The post above represents, to me, the very attitude which is worth addressing and correcting.

Yes, war is horrible. Yes, every country has done terrible things during war.

That doesn't mean it's too late to grow up. There are many lessons to be learned from the excesses of the past, and the failure to learn those lessons (and to discard offhand any attempts to discuss them as "not what I learned in school") leads to excesses in the "wars" we perpetrate today.

There's no reason humanity needs to be stuck repeating history forever.

I'm not interesting in a sympathy-fest for the Japanese. I'm interested in achieving consensus that what we did was unnecessary and, more pertinently wrong. I don't need to feel bad about that - I didn't do it. I can still opine that it should never happen again.

Like any war, there are two sides to the story. In this case, there are a few dozens sides. One of those sides is that the war with Japan was the culmination of two empires headbutting, in both cases at the expense of their people. In both cases the people were manipulated into a war by outside parties, and were forced to shoulder the burden to the benefit of those parties.

There's no reason we can't learn a few lessons from that. Jingoism isn't that important.

Here's a more scholarly revisionist approach:

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Revisionism is the result of recognizing that history is written by the victors, and there's often something to learn by considering the other side. That's all I'm after.

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

 

[OneForAll]

MamabearCali, That is the best post I have read on OCDO yet! +1

 

[OneForAll]

How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor.

I like how the original posted link is a used source for this link.

 

[marshaul]

I like how the original posted link is a used source for this link.

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