Hiroshima And Nagasaki

ne-yo, although i think your post was meant to attack me, i see your point.

You have insight into Truman's "views", as well as stating that nobody REALLY knows if Japan was about to surrender.


Thanks, that was all i needed.


D, this is for you.

Japan was defeated and they knew it. WW2 is MUCH different than if somebody randomly nuked an american city.

The bombs were used to END A WAR QUICKLY. Japan was done. We just dropped bombs to prevent an invasion. The whole point is that Japan was done and basically already on its knees. America is currently thriving as a great nation, so an event such as the bombing of a city would not draw us into surrender.

Japan knew it was going to be invaded. The war was over for them, but they were going to drag it out as long as possible. This would have destroyed their country COMPLETLEY. An american city blowing up would not really affect our country's ability to fight a war.

So, since we are in no danger of invasion or losing our country, we would not get on our knees after a bombing. Japan was done. Thats why they got on their knees.


i think i said the same thing like 5 times

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Originally Posted by Hominus

ne-yo, although i think your post was meant to attack me, i see your point.[/b]

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No don't think that. I probably should've limited the quotes, if it looked as if I was attacking Sorry about that, I was just trying to put my thoughts out there because it's so many intelligent people making thier views and opinions known on this Thread it's hard to keep up with you guys..lol. It's all Good.
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In so many ways you are wrong, Hominus Feralis. Both wrong in data and morally wrong.

For once, If I change a few words in all your positive things you said about america, you get exactly what muslim-extremist are yelling. 'America is the greatest!' 'Allah is the greatest'. 'America will prevail' 'We muslims will prevail'. 'We will hunt down and kill our enemies' 'We will hunt down and kill our opressors'.

The point is you are thinking in very absolute terms. Like extremists. I am not telling anything is great or perfect, just that it could be great or perfect or is currently the best alternative.

On another point, you people still don't seem to acknowledge all the wrong things about america. No nation is perfect. The netherlands suck on alot of points. So does america. Torture isn't good. War isn't good. Your clearly unnesecary wars arn't good. The muslim extremist arn't good at all. But america quite clearly isn't doing good too.

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Back to japan, you people seem to be totally ignoring posts by people that actually seem to know something about it. Like the blue meanie or that other dude that actually did the effort of looking up a piece of text from a japanese source, so you know their side of the story. On your side you just have only read your probably biased, for all historic literature is in a way, little books that probably have a big american flag on the cover.

like i said, we could not read the mind of japanese. If they wanted to surrender, they should have told us. Their inability to come to a decision quick enough cost them 240,000 lives.

i do not base my opinion on bias sources. I see that Japan did not give up after Hiroshima. THAT tells me that they were not ready. It is as simple as 1+1=2. They didnt give up after the bomb=they werent ready. It is simple common sense

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Originally Posted by Hominus

like i said, we could not read the mind of japanese. If they wanted to surrender, they should have told us. Their inability to come to a decision quick enough cost them 240,000 lives.

i do not base my opinion on bias sources. I see that Japan did not give up after Hiroshima. THAT tells me that they were not ready. It is as simple as 1+1=2. They didnt give up after the bomb=they werent ready. It is simple common sense
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If they wern't ready after 1, why be ready after 2? Both from japanse point of view and the american point of view it seems flawed to me.

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Originally Posted by Neruo

If they wern't ready after 1, why be ready after 2? [/b]

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Ask them why they were. They were! They surrendered after the second nuclear bombing. Do you really want to make the insane claim that they didn't? It is historical fact. They surrendered after the second bombing. Got it yet?

But they did not surrender after the first bombing. That too is a fact. Therefore, they were not ready to surrender BEFORE the first bombing. This is very easy logic, if you will just try.

But why do you care any way? I know your view on death.

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Originally Posted by Neruo

Yeah sometimes I too have the urge to see dead people. Sometimes it is funny, like someone that fell between the platform and a metro, and his skull was just scraped way.

... People allso like to look at a hostage situation or a building on fire. We just like to see other people in trouble. [/b]

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For those who do care about life, the nuclear bombings ended World War II, after YEARS of horrible deaths by the millions. And as Hominus and I keep very clearly illustrating, the Japanese were NOT ready to surrender until after the second nuclear bombing. The nukes saved lives in the big picture. That was the point of them.

Now somebody please explain this bizarre reasoning that Japan was ready to surrender BEFORE the first bomb but not AFTER it. If they were so weakened that they were ready to surrender, why did they suddenly change their minds when they saw that we had the weapon of all weapons? How does their lack of surrender after the first bomb not disprove the notion that they were ready to surrender before the first bomb? This issue keeps getting majorly avoided. The only explanation I have seen was from Bonsay, who said that they did not have enough time to communicate a surrender, which Hominus successfully countered immediately. Three days was plenty of time to communicate a surrender in an age of radios, telephones, and airplanes. Does anybody else want to try to answer the question?

Hahahaha, hilarous. Are you that willing to actually prove me wrong a single time that you actually quoted that form another forum? Who feels honoured ^__^ Who does? :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

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Gore can be pretty funny, as long as it is just gore. I don't Want those people to die, but if they do, and they died in a funny way. why not look at it. And it is just a fact human being are disaster-tourists. It's just evolutionairy. It's a fact. It has nothing to do with morals. Get your facts straight, and try not to misenterpit my posts again.

I don't even like to see people suffer pain, but hey if their brains are over the pavement, that is intresting. That doesn't take away the fact that I find any form of human and animal suffering bad and unnececary.

But who is talking? The america you support caused so much more pain then any other country in the world at the moment. Once again, you can't deny that. Yet you can and will ignore it, will you not?

Allso, you could have saved hunderds of thousands of life if you would just let the japanse keep their bit of royal honour (I refer to the blue meanie's posts). Yet you choose not to, you choose to kill.

actually, uh, germany caused a LOT more pain than we did (see: THE HOLOCAUST!!!!!!!!& #33;!!!!!!)

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Originally Posted by Neruo

Hahahaha, hilarous. Are you that willing to actually prove me wrong a single time that you actually quoted that form another forum? Who feels honoured ^__^ Who does? :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

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Gore can be pretty funny, as long as it is just gore. I don't Want those people to die, but if they do, and they died in a funny way. why not look at it. And it is just a fact human being are disaster-tourists. It's just evolutionairy. It's a fact. It has nothing to do with morals. Get your facts straight, and try not to misenterpit my posts again.

I don't even like to see people suffer pain, but hey if their brains are over the pavement, that is intresting. That doesn't take away the fact that I find any form of human and animal suffering bad and unnececary.

But who is talking? The america you support caused so much more pain then any other country in the world at the moment. Once again, you can't deny that. Yet you can and will ignore it, will you not?

Allso, you could have saved hunderds of thousands of life if you would just let the japanse keep their bit of royal honour (I refer to the blue meanie's posts). Yet you choose not to, you choose to kill.
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First of all, you once again dodged our big question. That is because you don't have a good answer. Wasn't it you who said that taking one lesser part of a debate topic and focussing on it is bad debate strategy? So, what is your answer to the question?

I think those gore videos of people dying are interesting, but I think they are tragic. There is not a damn thing funny about them. Your blatant indifference to human life is what makes it so easy for you to not understand the need to end World War II without inviting future attacks and without allowing our attackers to not have their government greatly improved. I'm glad we all know where you stand, despite your contradictions.

Oh I didn't see that question universal, not like I read trough all that bullshit you post.

Anyhow, I think america didn't do it's best to negotiate with japan. How it seems to me is that japan was just as willing to surrender after the first nuke as they were before, but like TBM allready said, under some mild conditions about their traditions.

America didn't hear japan offering any peace, becouse the american army had their own dick in their ears.

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Originally Posted by Neruo

Oh I didn't see that question universal, not like I read trough all that bullshit you post.

Anyhow, I think america didn't do it's best to negotiate with japan. How it seems to me is that japan was just as willing to surrender after the first nuke as they were before, but like TBM allready said, under some mild conditions about their traditions.

America didn't hear japan offering any peace, becouse the american army had their own dick in their ears.
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So Japan was not ready to surrender before the first nuke or immediately after it. They were in the same state of "But we demand something" before the first nuke and after it. They were not ready to unconditionally surrender, and it is U.S. policy to demand that of our attackers. But guess what... They were plenty ready to surrender after the second nuke. So it two nukes to get the Japanese to surrender without making us resort to suicidal policy. That is why it took not only a nuke, but a second nuke. There was no other way to do it without a long ass war continuation that would have gotten millions more killed. Remember that 52 million people had already died in that horrible war. The crap had to end. We ended it.

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Originally Posted by Universal

So Japan was not ready to surrender before the first nuke or immediately after it. They were in the same state of "But we demand something" before the first nuke and after it. They were not ready to unconditionally surrender, and it is U.S. policy to demand that of our attackers. But guess what... They were plenty ready to surrender after the second nuke. So it two nukes to get the Japanese to surrender without making us resort to suicidal policy. That is why it took not only a nuke, but a second nuke. There was no other way to do it without a long ass war continuation that would have gotten millions more killed. Remember that 52 million people had already died in that horrible war. The crap had to end. We ended it.
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So basically, 'you just folled the U.S. policy' and killed about 250.000 people, instead of acting hunamely, saving 250.000 peoples lives, and for once not look like an asshole in the world.

Ok, your call.

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Originally Posted by Universal

actually, uh, germany caused a LOT more pain than we did (see: THE HOLOCAUST!!!!!!!!& #33;!!!!!!)
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That is why I said 'at the moment'. But it seemed like you lost your spectacles. :)

I already posted the link and here it is again http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html

It's a summary of a book from Gar Alperovitz who is one of the most highly regarded experts on Hiroshima and US policy.

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Originally Posted by kramari

I already posted the link and here it is again http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/denson7.html

It's a summary of a book from Gar Alperovitz who is one of the most highly regarded experts on Hiroshima and US policy.
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Thank you, Kramari. Some interesting reading, perhaps, Universal Mind?

And from the summary:

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Alperovitz further points out in detail the documentary proof that every top presidential civilian and military advisor, with the exception of James Byrnes, along with Prime Minister Churchill and his top British military leadership, urged Truman to revise the unconditional surrender policy so as to allow the Japanese to surrender and keep their Emperor.[/b]

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Wow... HOW was I not aware of this?! I'm really suprised that I'd never known Sir Winston's stance on the prospects of Japanese surrender. Now, I have more respect for the Right Honourable Sir Winston Churchill.

Despite my being an atheist... that man should be canonised.

holy crap, some of you folks need to get your history straight. Dropping the bombs on Japan saved what could have been millions more allied troops. The Japanese beleived that their leader was a GOD. They would do anyhting including sacrifice their own lives and the lives of their families to win for their God. Women and children were trained to fight to the death in the case of an invasion. The only plausible way to end the war was to drop the bombs to convince their leader (who knew himself he was not a god) that we can take him out at any time but the only way to get his people, those worshiping him to stop fighting, even after we killed him was to get him to admit to his people that he was not a God and surrender indefinately to any enemy forces. Stay in school kids.



EX:
The Battle of Okinawa is distinguished among battles, yet often unrecognized when referring to the great battles of the Second World War. Over 250,000 people lost their lives. Approximately 150,000 Okinawans, about a third of the population, perished.(1) At the battle's end, somewhere between a third and half of all surviving civilians were wounded.(2) No battle during the Second World War, except Stalingrad, had as massive a loss of civilian life. The stakes were high. The Japanese, determined to fight to the last man, almost achieved their objective, but in defeat 100,000 Japanese combatants died rather than surrender.(3) In the end, fewer than 10,000 of General Mitsuri Ushijimas's Thirty-Second Army were taken prisoner.



They were willing to die meaningless deaths because their god told them it was the right thing to do and as long as they fought for him they would go to heaven.

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Originally Posted by TheNocturnalGent

They were willing to die meaningless deaths because their god told them it was the right thing to do and as long as they fought for him they would go to heaven.
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I don't know where you get your information about 20th century Japanese religious beliefs, but wherever it is from, you seem to severely misunderstand things. Traditionally, the Japanese emperor was tied up in the idea of a God. But, in the 2oth century, this was NO different from the idea that the Queen of England was the head of the Chuch of England. The Japanese, in the 20th century, were not cultish savages who believed their emperor was a God.

And even if they DID. This contrasts radically with the political reality within Japan at the time. The Emperor, Hirohito, months before the bombings sought to negotiate a surrender. It was the War Council from whom the "fight to the bitter end" rhetoric originated, not the Emperor. He was saying the exact opposite, and in the months before the bombings, he had already established his supremacy over the War Council.

:shakehead: ugh.

yep http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/5733/yepka0.gif

Yeah, nocturnalgent, think you missed the memo on that one.

Here's a tidbit on that that TBM posted in another thread:

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In April and May 1945, Japan made three attempts through neutral Sweden and Portugal to bring the war to a peaceful end. On April 7, acting Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu met with Swedish ambassador Widon Bagge in Tokyo, asking him "to ascertain what peace terms the United States and Britain had in mind." But he emphasized that unconditional surrender was unacceptable, and that "the Emperor must not be touched." Bagge relayed the message to the United States, but Secretary of State Stettinius told the US Ambassador in Sweden to "show no interest or take any initiative in pursuit of the matter." Similar Japanese peace signals through Portugal, on May 7, and again through Sweden, on the 10th, proved similarly fruitless.

By mid-June, six members of Japan's Supreme War Council had secretly charged Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo with the task of approaching Soviet Russia's leaders "with a view to terminating the war if possible by September." On June 22 the Emperor called a meeting of the Supreme War Council, which included the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and the leading military figures. "We have heard enough of this determination of yours to fight to the last soldiers," said Emperor Hirohito. "We wish that you, leaders of Japan, will strive now to study the ways and the means to conclude the war. In doing so, try not to be bound by the decisions you have made in the past."

By early July the US had intercepted messages from Togo to the Japanese ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, showing that the Emperor himself was taking a personal hand in the peace effort, and had directed that the Soviet Union be asked to help end the war. US officials also knew that the key obstacle to ending the war was American insistence on "unconditional surrender," a demand that precluded any negotiations. The Japanese were willing to accept nearly everything, except turning over their semi-divine Emperor. Heir of a 2,600-year-old dynasty, Hirohito was regarded by his people as a "living god" who personified the nation. (Until the August 15 radio broadcast of his surrender announcement, the Japanese people had never heard his voice.) Japanese particularly feared that the Americans would humiliate the Emperor, and even execute him as a war criminal.

On July 12, Hirohito summoned Fumimaro Konoye, who had served as prime minister in 1940-41. Explaining that "it will be necessary to terminate the war without delay," the Emperor said that he wished Konoye to secure peace with the Americans and British through the Soviets. As Prince Konoye later recalled, the Emperor instructed him "to secure peace at any price, notwithstanding its severity."

The next day, July 13, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo wired ambassador Naotake Sato in Moscow: "See [Soviet foreign minister] Molotov before his departure for Potsdam ... Convey His Majesty's strong desire to secure a termination of the war ... Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace ..."

On July 17, another intercepted Japanese message revealed that although Japan's leaders felt that the unconditional surrender formula involved an unacceptable dishonor, they were convinced that "the demands of the times" made Soviet mediation to terminate the war absolutely essential. Further diplomatic messages indicated that the only condition asked by the Japanese was preservation of "our form of government." The only "difficult point," a July 25 message disclosed, "is the ... formality of unconditional surrender."

Summarizing the messages between Togo and Sato, US naval intelligence said that Japan's leaders, "though still balking at the term unconditional surrender," recognized that the war was lost, and had reached the point where they have "no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the [1941] Atlantic Charter." These messages, said Assistant Secretary of the Navy Lewis Strauss, "indeed stipulated only that the integrity of the Japanese Royal Family be preserved."[/b]

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And what happened after the war ended with unconditional surrender after droping 2 bombs and killing 214000 people? The emperor was still an emperor. If peace was accepted in May even less people would have died. Universal Mind will probably say that that way USA would be seen as weak. Better be seen as weak than kill 214000 people or even 1 person for that matter.

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Originally Posted by kramari

And what happened after the war ended with unconditional surrender after droping 2 bombs and killing 214000 people? The emperor was still an emperor. If peace was accepted in May even less people would have died. Universal Mind will probably say that that way USA would be seen as weak. Better be seen as weak than kill 214000 people or even 1 person for that matter.
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Looking weak would have invited more attacks, resulting in more wars and far more death. We can't do that. Also, a government's responsiblity is its own people first, and we had a guaranteed way of completely stopping the deaths of our own soldiers. We were already at a point where 1.1 million had been killed or seriously injured. The first responsibility of our government was to put that to a stop.

Looking weak does result in greatly increased danger for countries that don't have even more powerful countries to protect them. Are you familiar with Bin Laden's reasons for thinking the United States was vulnerable on 9/11? He said that we are a "paper tiger", that we are a nation of cowards. He said he concluded that because of Bill Clinton's wussy baby retreat from Somalia (obviously for Clinton's political purposes. Character IS an issue.). The retreat therefore put us in danger. The same would have been true of giving into ANY Japanese demands in WWII. Al-Zawihiri said that he believed the U.S. would lose the war in Afghanistan because he knows how we retreated from Vietnam. The appearance of our weakness there was obviously part of the basis of his confidence. We should have nuked Hanois. Caving in when confronting evil is extaordinarily dangerous. Also don't forget that we agreed to let the Emporer remain in power only because he ended up agreeing to let us reform the country, something that was not part of the Japanese demands. That is an important fact that keeps getting overlooked in this discussion. I don't care what Churchill ended up saying. We did what we had to do.

Anybody who wants the U.S. to stop doing stuff like that needs to start speaking out against the scum that puts us in those insane situations. The silence is deafening.

First of all, even less US soldiers would've died if peace was signed in May, so that wasn't first responsibility of your government.

So nuking Hanoi would be justified how? North Vietnam didn't attack the USA. Plus the Soviet Union would surely respond with its own nukes. Being weak in this case and retrating was a smart thing to do.

I'm just glad that Nikita Khrushchev wasn't thinking like you during the Cuban missile crisis.

So you think that the Japanese wouldn't agree to let the USA reform the country? The only demand was to leave the emperor in his throne (as stated at least 10 times already).

reading that only further supports what i said. I dont see where you're coming from. They were unwilling to have an unconditional surender. We wanted this because of the the war crimes that we felt had to be paid for. I dont know if you are aware of what the japanese did to the chinese durring WW2 but it was pretty grusome. One of the most notorious things was while raiding chinese cities they would take the pregnant women and tie their legs together and then induce labor for torture. Men were forced to watch their wives and children get raped and sodimised and then beheaded only to be beheaded themselves soon after. There wa more than just "oh cmon guys lets stop fighting, this is just silly" The Japanese durring WW2 were more hostile, agressive, and radical thanthe european Axis ever was.

Also there were a good amount of troops in the pacific islands that even after thr war continued to fight for years because they beleived the news that the war was over was a ploy to flush them out ebcause they beleived that the emoror would never surrender no matter how long or how many lives were lost

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Originally Posted by TheNocturnalGent

reading that only further supports what i said. I dont see where you're coming from. They were unwilling to have an unconditional surender. We wanted this because of the the war crimes that we felt had to be paid for.
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Oh, my god! Look, even after the nukings, when America DID accept Japan's unconditional surrender, Emperor Hirohito was NOT trialed for war crimes! So, in reality, the ACTUAL "unconditional" surrender that America accepted AFTER the nukings, was no different in effect to the "conditional" surrender Japan was pushing for BEFORE the nukings.

The whole argument that America wanted to hold Hirohito accountable for war crimes is totally batshit, because even after they had dropped the nukes, they DIDN'T.

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Originally Posted by TheNocturnalGent

I dont know if you are aware of what the japanese did to the chinese durring WW2 but it was pretty grusome. One of the most notorious things was while raiding chinese cities they would take the pregnant women and tie their legs together and then induce labor for torture. Men were forced to watch their wives and children get raped and sodimised and then beheaded only to be beheaded themselves soon after. There wa more than just "oh cmon guys lets stop fighting, this is just silly" The Japanese durring WW2 were more hostile, agressive, and radical thanthe european Axis ever was.
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Yeah, I totally agree. To my knowledge, the Japanese committed greater atrocities than the Nazis during WWII. But, this STRENGTHENS my argument.

The American demands for "unconditional" surrender had NOTHING to do with holding hirohito accountable for war crimes. This is shown by the fact that after the war, they didn't sentence Hirohito for war crimes. (Which would have been inappropriate anyway... there's a fair bit of argument as to who was responsible, and I, for my part, would argue that it was not hirohito)

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Originally Posted by kramari

First of all, even less US soldiers would've died if peace was signed in May, so that wasn't first responsibility of your government.

So nuking Hanoi would be justified how? North Vietnam didn't attack the USA. Plus the Soviet Union would surely respond with its own nukes. Being weak in this case and retrating was a smart thing to do.

I'm just glad that Nikita Khrushchev wasn't thinking like you during the Cuban missile crisis.

So you think that the Japanese wouldn't agree to let the USA reform the country? The only demand was to leave the emperor in his throne (as stated at least 10 times already).
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You keep forgetting that we had the future to think about. We could not give into the demand for unconditional surrender. It would have created much more danger and tons more dead soldiers and quite possibly civilians in the future.

The Vietnam war was not about an attack on the U.S. It was about preventing the communist take over of another country. We did what we had to do to stop that crap from spreading across the whole planet. The Soviet Union would not have dared to have a nuclear war with us over Vietnam. Not worth it at all. They would have nuked us for nuking Moscow, but not Hanois.

The Japanese demand was to let the Emporer remain in power as an emporer. That does not mean they had an "Anything else goes!" attitude about things. It's not like they were going to say, "Since we only had that one demand, feel free to take all of our resources and rape all of our women, and whatever else you want to do, as long as the Emporer remains in power." Having a demand does not mean allowing the demandee to do as they will outside of the demand. Reforming the government was not within their demand just because it was not mentioned. It was outside of what was stated. They were not going to let us do it without our winning the war.