Daily Show calls Truman a war criminal

[OumaFan]

I actually read a few books about this for a seminar, there's a revisionist argument that the Japanese could have been induced to surrender before but that's gone out of style a bit, newer books that have done research in Japanese archives don't agree with that, the Japanese thought they could actually successfully repel an invasion and the Americans weren't extraordinarily confident, that and the Japanese didn't agree to peace terms that would have let them keep the Emperor.

Granted I haven't read everything, its not my field.

But the newer revisionist argument (that I've read) refutes that Japan would have surrendered but argues that Truman would have wanted to use the nukes anyway, and do it quickly before the Soviets entered the war so they could get what they were promised to enter the war, the Sakhalin Islands, the Kurile Islands, I don't know if that's the right spelling, keep them out of Mongolia, etc.

[OumaFan]

for fucks sake, I just wrote the worst essay about the interwar period in Europe.

Fuck.

I had to put in like a two page conclusion just to try to get the professor to understand what I was talking about.

I don't even know why I'm talking about history, I'm sick of history.

Fuck it, I'm turning it in anyway.

Alcohol, fuck yeah.

[Youngblood]

I loved the truman show. I even cried a little.

Jon Stewart is a Bastard.

[CFH]

for fucks sake, I just wrote the worst essay about the interwar period in Europe.

Fuck.

I had to put in like a two page conclusion just to try to get the professor to understand what I was talking about.

I don't even know why I'm talking about history, I'm sick of history.

Fuck it, I'm turning it in anyway.

Alcohol, fuck yeah.

Are you specializing in European history?

[Andre]

Why two bombs?
Why not one with the threat of "the next one is on the way" if you dont surrender."

There's a crime against one whole city of innocent people right there.

Pay backs a bitch, Sink our ships in Hawaii /we flatten your assess once and for all.

To be fair though : Nagasaki got unlucky,
they wernt an original target the real target was cloud covered and the delivery men took it into their own hands to drop on a town they could see on the way out.

[Gandalf]

This is a link that articulates a few of the main greviances with Truman. He seems to have been an unpleasant, corrupt individual. There was no need to use the nuclear bomb like he did.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/truman.html

[CGM]

Why two bombs?
Why not one with the threat of "the next one is on the way" if you dont surrender."

There's a crime against one whole city of innocent people right there.

Pay backs a bitch, Sink our ships in Hawaii /we flatten your assess once and for all.

To be fair though : Nagasaki got unlucky,
they wernt an original target the real target was cloud covered and the delivery men took it into their own hands to drop on a town they could see on the way out.

I was gonna say, if anyone is looking for the reasons why he might be called a war criminal, then targeting hundreds of thousands of civilians might be one. But people can use whatever words they want to describe that.

[VictorCharlie]

I think you have to use the context of the time and not today. Total war was nation vs nation. Some very serious and catastrophic actions would have to take place today to see two super power nations wage total war against each other. Other than nuclear weapons falling into the hands of a mad man I cannot begin to fathom their use in today's world. From my reading and studies it is my humble opinion that Japan was not going to surrender w/o out an invasion of its main island(s). In the context of the time I think it was the right decision that I am sure was not come to in haste. I just think there is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks out there that want to "what if" the topic to death. I think unless you are the President with the potential to end an unprovoked war of aggression while minimizing US casualties it is hard to second guess it.

[CGM]

Van, you make some valid points, about the context of the times and all. It's a tough call. Hard to agree or disagree with what you say.

[El Kabong]

I was gonna say, if anyone is looking for the reasons why he might be called a war criminal, then targeting hundreds of thousands of civilians might be one. But people can use whatever words they want to describe that.

We didn't want to have to drop the bombs and we certainly gave them the option of us not doing it.

But riddle me this, what would have happened had we tried to win the war without the bombs I mean we had to drop TWO on them for them to even consider surrendering. The United States lost 354,523 (106,207 killed/248,316 wounded or MIA) men in the Pacific theater and we lost over 6,000 men just taking Iwo Jima! Over 7,000 were killed in Guadalcanal! Over 12,000 were killed in taking Okinawa! ....so how the hell do you think taking Japan proper would have gone?

I guess the main question I am asking you is would the death toll be higher or lower than the 80,000 (45,000-75,000 immediate deaths) total speculated deaths caused by the two bombings?

Because I KNOW the death toll would have been much higher than just 80,000. The Death toll had the US invaded Japan would have been 2-4 times higher than the 80,000 that died on account of the bombs and everyone else seems to know that and aknowledge that except for you.

So tell me Mr. Butterflies and Rainbows, how else were we to end the war with Japan and have FEWER casualties?

And also were there not civilian casualties in England from the bombing? Germany? USSR? China? and even the in US from Pearl Harbor?


Must be nice being from the great Vanilla country of Canada who does nothing wrong because they do NOTHING at all

[CFH]

I was gonna say, if anyone is looking for the reasons why he might be called a war criminal, then targeting hundreds of thousands of civilians might be one. But people can use whatever words they want to describe that.

We didn't want to have to drop the bombs and we certainly gave them the option of us not doing it.

But riddle me this, what would have happened had we tried to win the war without the bombs I mean we had to drop TWO on them for them to even consider surrendering. The United States lost 354,523 (106,207 killed/248,316 wounded or MIA) men in the Pacific theater and we lost over 6,000 men just taking Iwo Jima! Over 7,000 were killed in Guadalcanal! Over 12,000 were killed in taking Okinawa! ....so how the hell do you think taking Japan proper would have gone?

I guess the main question I am asking you is would the death toll be higher or lower than the 80,000 (45,000-75,000 immediate deaths) total speculated deaths caused by the two bombings?

Because I KNOW the death toll would have been much higher than just 80,000. The Death toll had the US invaded Japan would have been 2-4 times higher than the 80,000 that died on account of the bombs and everyone else seems to know that and aknowledge that except for you.

So tell me Mr. Butterflies and Rainbows, how else were we to end the war with Japan and have FEWER casualties?

And also were there not civilian casualties in England from the bombing? Germany? USSR? China? and even the in US from Pearl Harbor?


Must be nice being from the great Vanilla country of Canada who does nothing wrong because they do NOTHING at all

I'm starting to get seriously tired of these kinds of statements.

How does his nationality make his opinion less valid? And before you say it bothers me because I am a Canadian - I don't give a flying fuck about my country and I would be absolutely fine if it broke up and disappeared completely.

Nationality does not inform the value of an individuals opinion and I can never understand why you're so focused on it. I know, I know, it's all in jest, right? It's ridiculous though, you're like a goddamn caricature. You just repeat the same things over and over again as if your belligerence somehow adds validity to your opinions and it makes it hard to take much of what you say seriously.

He never said anything bad or controversial, yet you jump all over him because it has to do with one of your Presidents. All he was doing was presenting a difference view of war in general, a valid one held by many people, and he never once said he subscribed to it.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but it's annoying to have to read the same rhetoric ad nauseam, and it makes it very difficult for legitimate discussion to take place because it frustrates and alienates people very quickly.

"Nationalism is a psychopathic, pernicious form of idiocy."

[Andre]

I was gonna say, if anyone is looking for the reasons why he might be called a war criminal, then targeting hundreds of thousands of civilians might be one. But people can use whatever words they want to describe that.

We didn't want to have to drop the bombs and we certainly gave them the option of us not doing it.


We gave them no such thing, we planned it in secret and dropped it on their fukkin heads. didnt we?

We didnt give them an option not to drop did we?

(other than the fight you guys finally decided to join in after Pearl Harbour?



The British knew about Pearl harbour way before it occured becuase we had already decoded the Gerrrys messages.Churchill decideded not to twll you guys becuasee was being ignored when he asked for your help over the past two years or so.

You guys wouldnt have even joined the war unless you got dragged into it so enough of the Canada does nothing stuff.


Oh and just in case... leave Australia out of it too. If you knew how things acutally operate between us all, you would know for a fact that Australian Sas were in deep doing work months and months prior to what people belive is the first shot. Even in the last conflicts in Iraq and Afganistan to prepare the way for your boys to arrive and do their ground work,we were in there about 8 months before anyone public even knew it was going to go down. NewZealanders and Canadians too. Even though we dont have the numbers you have to turn up on mass we are there with 'silent bells' on before you even know it and usually before you too if you look into it.


But riddle me this, what would have happened had we tried to win the war without the bombs I mean we had to drop TWO on them for them to even consider surrendering. The United States lost 354,523 (106,207 killed/248,316 wounded or MIA) men in the Pacific theater and we lost over 6,000 men just taking Iwo Jima! Over 7,000 were killed in Guadalcanal! Over 12,000 were killed in taking Okinawa! ....so how the hell do you think taking Japan proper would have gone?

I guess the main question I am asking you is would the death toll be higher or lower than the 80,000 (45,000-75,000 immediate deaths) total speculated deaths caused by the two bombings?

Because I KNOW the death toll would have been much higher than just 80,000. The Death toll had the US invaded Japan would have been 2-4 times higher than the 80,000 that died on account of the bombs and everyone else seems to know that and aknowledge that except for you.

So tell me Mr. Butterflies and Rainbows, how else were we to end the war with Japan and have FEWER casualties?

And also were there not civilian casualties in England from the bombing? Germany? USSR? China? and even the in US from Pearl Harbor?


Must be nice being from the great Vanilla country of Canada who does nothing wrong because they do NOTHING at all

And for the record Im with the bombing, I dont think the Japs would have stopped for anything else.

In hinsight: If we knew the devestation that was to occur; ONE bomb and a threat to drop more would have been plenty enough to stop them.

Enough of the Vanilla and rainbow crap mate there are kids still being born that look like knots from that horrible fusion,the suffereing still goes on.

If we knew what we do now, we woudnt of dropped that size or that amount on the same targets.

[OumaFan]

for fucks sake, I just wrote the worst essay about the interwar period in Europe.

Fuck.

I had to put in like a two page conclusion just to try to get the professor to understand what I was talking about.

I don't even know why I'm talking about history, I'm sick of history.

Fuck it, I'm turning it in anyway.

Alcohol, fuck yeah.

Are you specializing in European history?

Not really, more American diplomatic history but obviously that gets into European stuff a lot.

To me this is a complicated issue, its easy to make it a simple black and white good or evil thing but there is context, how many American soldiers, Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians would have died in an invasion? My guess would be a shit ton.

I don't have the exact numbers but unless I'm wrong something like 100, 000 Japanese soldiers died there. Firebombing of Tokyo around the same but civilians.

Fuck, the numbers vary on Soviet civilians but its absolutely staggering. Growing up as a kid in America its easy to not know that the war was mainly on the Eastern front.

[CFH]

for fucks sake, I just wrote the worst essay about the interwar period in Europe.

Fuck.

I had to put in like a two page conclusion just to try to get the professor to understand what I was talking about.

I don't even know why I'm talking about history, I'm sick of history.

Fuck it, I'm turning it in anyway.

Alcohol, fuck yeah.

Are you specializing in European history?

Not really, more American diplomatic history but obviously that gets into European stuff a lot.

To me this is a complicated issue, its easy to make it a simple black and white good or evil thing but there is context, how many American soldiers, Japanese soldiers and Japanese civilians would have died in an invasion? My guess would be a shit ton.

I don't have the exact numbers but unless I'm wrong something like 100, 000 Japanese soldiers died there. Firebombing of Tokyo around the same but civilians.

Fuck, the numbers vary on Soviet civilians but its absolutely staggering. Growing up as a kid in America its easy to not know that the war was mainly on the Eastern front.

I've been focusing on U.S. history as well, it's a fascinating subject. However, I'm probably going to be changing my major, so I doubt I'll be spending much (if any) time in history classes, which sucks.