Shock & Awe has begun, Iraq being blown up.

[Guest Powerplay]

If we would have waited about two months, Russia would have overrun Japan themselves, probably.

Yes, which would have lead to another large Communist nation in Asia. The World would be far different today if Japan had been a Communist nation, and I'm sure it wouldn't have been for the better.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

So we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people to "save them from communism"?

 

Now, even you can't justify that as a reason.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

If the Soviets would of gained control of Japan. They would of killed alot more people than the 2 Atomic Bombs.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

They wouldn't have control, really. They would have set up a government, not occupied.

 

It's hindsight, though.

 

Basically, your argument is that you killed hundreds of thousands of people to save them from communism. That's kinda piss poor.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

It is hindsight. But looking at the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, one could assume they would at least tried to do the same thing to Japan.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Actually, the purges were, for the most part, in Russia post WWII. The collectivization and killing of foreign people in sattelite states was concentrated mostly in the 30s. Most of the post WWII waves of Russian atrocities were against their own soldiers (who had "seen the western world) and whatnot, in addition to the main purges of Russian cities.

 

I reccomend "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksander Solzheinitzyn for more knowledge about the Russian purges and prison system under Stalin.

 

I personally doubt the Japanese casualties would have ranged quite as high under communism, but it doesn't really matter because we'll never know. It's just speculation to this point.

[Guest Powerplay]

Actually, the purges were, for the most part, in Russia post WWII. The collectivization and killing of foreign people in sattelite states was concentrated mostly in the 30s. Most of the post WWII waves of Russian atrocities were against their own soldiers (who had "seen the western world) and whatnot, in addition to the main purges of Russian cities.

 

I reccomend "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksander Solzheinitzyn for more knowledge about the Russian purges and prison system under Stalin.

 

I personally doubt the Japanese casualties would have ranged quite as high under communism, but it doesn't really matter because we'll never know. It's just speculation to this point.

Actually, Tyler, many of the Eastern European countries had their own purges of all the idealist Communists so that Russia could put Stalinists into power. And also, the fact that the Japanese culture would not have adapted to Communism well (Being that it's pretty much devoid of spiritualism, an important aspect in Japanese Culture), their resistance and the susequent reprisals would have been quite brutal, considering the time era we are in.

 

Trust me, any way you cut it more lives were saved by dropping those bombs. Do you honestly think a Russian Invasion would have saved more Japanese lives?

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

No, but we weren't really concerned with the Japanese casualties when we dropped the bomb... we were worried about saving American lives.

 

The other Eastern European purges were not even close to as high in numbers (or percentages) as Stalin's psychotic purges, frankly. The final Japanese casualties may have been similar in numbers, but I fail to believe that more Japanese people would have died over the course of a communist revolution as died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they initiated such massive purges, after all, they probably would have toppled the government.

[Guest Powerplay]

No, but we weren't really concerned with the Japanese casualties when we dropped the bomb... we were worried about saving American lives.

But it happens to work out that it was the scenario that saved the most lives. Interesting, eh?

 

The other Eastern European purges were not even close to as high in numbers (or percentages) as Stalin's psychotic purges, frankly. The final Japanese casualties may have been similar in numbers, but I fail to believe that more Japanese people would have died over the course of a communist revolution as died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If they initiated such massive purges, after all, they probably would have toppled the government.

 

There were still purges, and they were substantial at least.

 

You also have to consider this: If the cost of an American invasion (Considering that we had far greater firepower and better means to do it than the Russians) was as high as we have been told, how high do you think it would have been against the Russians, who routinely put divisions through meat grinders and lacked a flexible, adapting command structure that allowed us to make such good quick decisions? They would have utterly destroyed Japan, and the costs afterwards during the Communist reconstruction and the inevitable purges would have been massive as well.

[Guest Tyler McClelland]

Still, it's somewhat troubling that our given reason for dropping the bomb could have been accomplished via other means that didn't leave a few cities laying in waste.

 

If we were looking to save Japanese lives, fine, it might make sense given the alternative. But, that wasn't Truman's reason for the deployment of the weapon.

 

I'll concede that you're probably right in that Russia probably would have been completely ruthless and slaughtered most of Japan to conquer it, though. That was a factor I wasn't really weighing into the casualties.

[Guest TheMikeSC]

We've never gassed Civilian populations, nor did we torture prisoners of war.

No but you have dropped TWO nuclear bombs on civilian populations.

And we saved lives in the process. We spared Japan an occupation by Russia and we spared all of the casualties that an invasion would've caused.

-=Mike

[Guest MrRant]

It's called war... umm... you do what it takes to win.

 

To quote Carlin: "You got to stay in there and keep fucking them. Fuck them to the end. FUCK THEM TO DEATH."